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The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, launched its anticipated multi-year plan last week that aims to improve access to mortgage credit for limited English proficiency (LEP) borrowers.

As part of this plan, the FHFA announced last year that it would be adding a preferred language question to the redesigned Uniform Residential Loan Application (URLA) that will be mandatory for government-sponsored enterprise (GSE) loans beginning in February 2020. In comments to the FHFA in July, NAFCU said that while it supports better access to mortgage credit for creditworthy borrowers, it was concerned about potential costs and legal issues that could arise from such a question.

Following NAFCU's comments, disclosure language was attached to the preferred language question to mitigate legal concerns raised by lenders. However, there are still concerns about the burden the enactment of this plan could have on credit unions.

Additional key components of the plan include:

• Clearinghouse: Phase 1 will be implemented in late 2018 to enable lenders, services and housing counselors to access existing GSE materials and those from other government agencies.
• Language Access Working Group: This year, FHFA and the GSEs will gather input from working group members (representatives from the housing industry and consumer organizations) about the elements of this plan.
• Disclosure: To accompany the preferred language question on the URLA, the disclosure has been translated in the top five languages.
• Glossaries: The Spanish translation of the glossary will be completed this year.
• Translated URLA: The URLA has been translated into Spanish; translation into the other languages will be completed over the next two years.