Month: February 2013

Under revised guidelines effective October 1, 2009, the FHA is implementing a new approval process for condominiums to be eligible for FHA / HUD financing. Under the new guidelines, the spot approval process will no longer be available, and approvals expire every two years.  Click here to see a copy of the HUD Notice. – Historically, to utilize […]

FHA/HUD’s revised condominium certification regulations originally slated to take effect on October 1, 2009 and pushed back to November 2nd, are now scheduled to be implemented on December 7, 2009.  The onerous new regs, as described in HUD’s Mortgagee Letter 2009-19 (published on June 12, 2009), were met with controversy due to the potentially chilling impact on […]

In the past several weeks as I have been speaking on the new HUD/FHA guidelines, many persons have asked me whether HUD/FHA will require the “straight line,” “cash flow” or some other methodology for determining percentage of reserve funding.  The short answer is, “we do not know.” What we do know is that in order to obtain FHA […]

On November 6th, the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) finally issued major changes to its revised guidelines on mortgage insurance requirements for condominium associations.  The original guideline revisions were first proposed back in June (under Mortgagee Letter 2009-19).  The new guidelines go into effect on December 7, 2009; however, some of the requirements are phased in through January 31, 2010. If you […]

Homeowner association boards often struggle with enforcing certain rules, such as improper parking, failing to pick up after pets, littering and similar conduct.  It is not that the violations are unimportant or do not affect the character of the community; rather, the cost and effort  required to catch violators often exceeds the resources available to non-profit homeowner associations. However, there is a […]

Yesterday, I was co-presenting at a Washington Community Association Institute (CAI) seminar on community building and annual meetings.  When discussing owner engagement in association matters, an attendee asked how a board should respond to “the crazies,” and went on to describe a protracted dispute between several renegade homeowners and her board of directors. As soon as the board member finished asking her […]

Because I have received so many inquiries and questions regarding my recent posts on the new HUD/FHA Condominium Guidelines, I thought I would keep our readers apprised on the latest developments over at FHA. A number of important changes were announced yesterday by the FHA to reduce risk and improve its finances: The upfront mortgage insurance premium […]

The last unanswered question I had regarding the new FHA guidelines involved the difference between the Direct Endorsed Lender Review Approval Process (DELRAP) and the HUD Review Approval Process (HRAP).  In reviewing and analyzing the provisions promulgated in HUD Mortgagee Letter 2009-46B, the guidelines explained in detail the DELRAP process, but did not describe the precise submission process for HRAP.  The […]

There have been several recent reports in the media and Blogosphere of lenders and squatters gaining access to Northwest homes vacated through the foreclosure process: AG’s Office Investigating Squatters; The Lafayette Report – Legal Alert; Bend Foreclosures on the Rise. The justification provided by lenders may be that they received a report that the property was vacant and unsecured and that […]

One of the most popular blog posts we have published to date was our January 10th: “Dealing With ‘the Crazies’ Within a Homeowners Community.”   Though we received ample comments supporting the article, we also received several emails from readers wondering why we didn’t write a similar article about “crazy” or irrational homeowner association boards of directors.  Therefore, as requested… In our experience, […]