Today the Community Home Lenders of America (CHLA) wrote a letter to Congressional Chairs and Ranking Members of the House and Senate Veterans Affairs Committees calling for a reduction in the fees veterans pay for Veterans Administration (VA) mortgage loans.
Higher VA home mortgage fees – so-called Blue Water Navy fees – have been in place by statute since 2019 in order to pay for non-mortgage VA benefits, and these add-on fees are scheduled to expire in April of next year.
The CHLA letter asked Congress not to extend the higher fees at that time.
CHLA sent this letter at this time – as Congress enters a lame duck session – to also argue against using an extension of the fees as an offset to pay for for other spending. CHLA is not aware of any effort to do so – but this is a common end-of year practice. For example, just one year ago Congress raised GSE G Fees by $21 billion over 10 years to pay for infrastructure spending.
In its letter, CHLA cited its longstanding policy that mortgage fees for any federal mortgage program should only be used for “maintaining the health and integrity of the underlying mortgage program and should never be diverted for other purposes, however laudatory.”
CHLA’s letter noted that letting the higher fees expire will save veterans and active duty personnel some $200 million a year.
Read the full letter here: https://www.communitylender.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/CHLA-Letter-VA-Home-Mortgage-Fees-Final.pdf