HUD’s FHA Appraiser Roster is Generally Reliable but Opportunities to Improve Data Management Exist
We audited HUD’s management of its FHA appraiser roster to determine whether the roster was accurate and reliable. We selected this review because a prior audit identified weaknesses related to roster oversight and because this topic aligns with HUD’s strategic goals related to promoting home ownership and strengthening its internal capacity, as well as increased interest in the appraisal process. HUD’s FHA appraiser roster was…
July 30, 2024
Report
#2024-NY-0001
Servicers Followed the COVID-19 Foreclosure Moratorium Requirements but Could Have Better Communicated the Requirements to Borrowers
Servicers followed the COVID-19 pandemic foreclosure moratorium requirements. However, they could have better communicated the moratorium requirements to delinquent borrowers who were subject to foreclosure proceedings. This situation occurred because HUD did not require servicers to notify borrowers directly about the foreclosure moratorium and that occupancy would pause the foreclosure process. Borrowers who were not informed…
May 24, 2024
Report
#2024-KC-0002
HUD Can Improve Its Loan Purchaser Qualification Vetting To Better Achieve Its Mission Objectives
We audited the Federal Housing Administration (FHA), Office of Asset Sales’ U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD)-Held Vacant Loan Sales (HVLS) program. The audit objective was to assess the extent to which HUD achieved its mission objectives for a 2022 vacant loan sale. We noted deficiencies in 52 of 53 HUD-approved applications within the reviewed vacant loan sale. These deficiencies occurred in transactions…
April 18, 2024
Report
#2024-KC-0001
Opportunities Exist To Improve HUD’s FHA Resource Center’s Routing of Housing Discrimination Inquiries
We audited the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), Office of Single Family Housing’s Federal Housing Administration (FHA) Resource Center’s handling of housing discrimination inquiries. We initiated the audit to assist HUD with ensuring that the FHA Resource Center (1) provided accurate and complete information on potential housing discrimination to its customers and (2) ensured that instances of potential housing…
December 18, 2023
Report
#2024-BO-0001
Nationstar Generally Did Not Meet HUD Requirements When Providing Loss Mitigation to Borrowers of Delinquent FHA-Insured Loans
We audited Nationstar Mortgage, LLC’s (doing business as Mr. Cooper (Nationstar)) compliance with the Federal Housing Administration’s (FHA) requirements for providing loss mitigation assistance to borrowers after their COVID-19 forbearance ended. We concurrently conducted a nationwide audit of servicers’ compliance with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) COVID-19 loss mitigation requirements (HUD Office of Inspector…
June 13, 2023
Report
#2023-KC-1001
Servicers Generally Did Not Meet HUD Requirements When Providing Loss Mitigation Assistance to Borrowers With Delinquent FHA-Insured Loans
We performed an audit of loan servicers’ compliance with the Federal Housing Administration’s (FHA) requirements for providing loss mitigation assistance to borrowers after their COVID-19 forbearance ended. We initiated the audit based on the large number of borrowers exiting forbearance, because the loss mitigation programs available to these borrowers were new and created a risk for both borrowers and the FHA insurance fund when…
June 13, 2023
Report
#2023-KC-0005
HUD Can Improve Oversight of Its Temporary Endorsement Policy for Loans in COVID-19 Forbearance
We audited the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) temporary policy for endorsement of loans with COVID-19 forbearance activity because an analysis of data in HUD’s systems showed that there may have been loans that did not comply with the policy’s requirements. The policy was one aspect of HUD’s broader emergency response to COVID-19, which also included an eviction moratorium and loan forbearance for borrowers…
May 15, 2023
Report
#2023-NY-0002
HUD’s Communication to Homeowners About COVID-19 Policies
We audited the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) efforts to proactively communicate information related to the coronavirus disease of 2019 (COVID-19) to homeowners with Federal Housing Administration (FHA)-insured mortgages. We initiated this work based on a U.S. Government Accountability Office report that identified helping borrowers understand the protections available to them as a key challenge and prior audit…
January 30, 2023
Report
#2023-NY-0001
Approximately 31,500 FHA-Insured Loans Did Not Maintain the Required Flood Insurance Coverage in 2020
Develop a control to detect loans that did not maintain the required flood insurance to put $1.5 billion to better use by avoiding potential future costs to the FHA insurance fund from inadequately insured properties.
Corrective Action Taken
In November 2022, FHA published the Acceptance of Private Flood Insurance for FHA-Insured Mortgages final rule (Docket No. FR-6084-F-02) in the Federal Register and issued Mortgagee Letter 2022-18,…
March 22, 2022
Report
#2022-KC-0002
HUD Did Not Have Adequate Controls in Place to Track, Monitor, and Issue FHA Refunds Owed to Homeowners
We audited the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) oversight of Federal Housing Administration (FHA) refunds based on a hotline complaint alleging that HUD was trying to make it difficult for claimants to obtain refunds or discourage them from pursuing the refunds, which are due to eligible homeowners from the unearned portion of the upfront mortgage insurance premium paid. Our audit found the allegations from the…
January 07, 2022
Report
#2022-LA-0001
FHA Borrowers Did Not Always Properly Receive COVID-19 Forbearances From Their Loan Servicers
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), Office of Inspector General (OIG), completed an audit to determine whether FHA-insured borrowers properly received the COVID-19-related forbearance. The Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES Act), signed into law on March 27, 2020, provided a mortgage payment forbearance option for all borrowers who suffered a financial hardship due to the COVID-19 national…
December 15, 2021
Report
#2022-KC-0001
HUD Did Not Always Implement Corrective Actions To Further Ensure That HECM Borrowers Complied With Principal Residency Requirements
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), Office of Inspector General (OIG), completed a corrective action verification (CAV) of recommendations from four prior home equity conversion mortgage (HECM) audit reports. The CAV was initiated because protecting the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) mutual mortgage insurance fund is one of HUD’s top management challenges. The prior audits determined that HUD lacked…
December 10, 2021
Report
#2022-PH-0801
COVID-19 Forbearance Data in HUD’s Single Family Default Monitoring System Generally Agreed With Information Maintained by Loan Servicers
We audited lender reporting of COVID-19 forbearances for Federal Housing Administration (FHA)-insured loans in the Single Family Default Monitoring System (SFDMS). We compared default reporting data from SFDMS to loan data provided by five sampled servicing lenders that serviced a third of the FHA single-family portfolio. Our audit objective was to determine whether COVID-19 forbearance data available in SFDMS were consistent with…
August 16, 2021
Report
#2021-KC-0005
Evaluation Closure – Federal Housing Administration Residency Requirements
In June 2020, we received letters from members of Congress, including the chairpersons of the House Committee on Financial Services and Oversight and Investigation Subcommittee, expressing concern that the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) imposed a new, nonpublic, and legally erroneous policy that prohibited issuing Federal Housing Administration (FHA)-insured loans to Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA)…
March 30, 2021
Memorandum
#2021-OE-0002
Key Considerations From Prior Audits of the Single Family Default Monitoring System and the Partial Claim Loss Mitigation Option
We prepared this memorandum to provide the Office of Housing at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) with key considerations from prior audits of the HUD Single Family Default Monitoring System (SFDMS) and the partial claim loss mitigation option. These audits identified HUD’s lack of effective controls to ensure that lenders reported default information accurately and in a timely manner, lenders promptly filed and…
March 12, 2021
Memorandum
#2021-KC-0801
FHA Insured $940 Million in Loans for Properties in Flood Zones Without the Required Flood Insurance
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Office of Inspector General, has completed its audit of Federal Housing Administration (FHA)-insured loans originated in calendar year 2019. Our audit objective was to determine whether FHA insured loans that were not eligible for insurance because they did not have the required flood insurance coverage. We found FHA insured at least 3,870 loans that closed in 2019, totaling $940…
January 05, 2021
Report
#2021-KC-0002
Interim Audit Memorandum – The HUD Single Family Insurance Operations Division Should Take Additional Action To Inform Homeowners of Changes to Its FHA Refund Process Resulting From the COVID-19 Pandemic
We initiated an audit of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) oversight of Federal Housing Administration (FHA) refunds to determine whether HUD appropriately, effectively, and efficiently tracked, monitored, and issued FHA refunds owed to homeowners with terminated loans. During the audit field work, the Coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic began and as a result, we developed a second, more urgent audit objective to…
December 02, 2020
Memorandum
#2021-LA-0802
Audit of Ginnie Mae’s Fiscal Year 2020 Financial Statements
This report presents the results of our audit of Ginnie Mae’s fiscal year 2020 financial statements, including our report on Ginnie Mae’s internal control and test of compliance with selected provisions of laws, regulations, and contracts applicable to Ginnie Mae. In fiscal year 2020, we were able to obtain sufficient, appropriate evidence to express an unmodified opinion on the fairness of Ginnie Mae’s financial statements. We also…
November 16, 2020
Report
#2021-FO-0002
Some Mortgage Loan Servicers’ Websites Continue to Offer Information about CARES Act Loan Forbearance That Could Mislead or Confuse Borrowers, or Provide Little or no Information at all
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), Office of Inspector General (OIG) conducted this study to follow up on information we shared previously regarding what information servicers of mortgage loans insured by Federal Housing Administration (FHA) are providing to borrowers regarding forbearance options available under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES Act).
We reported on April 27, 2020, that our…
September 30, 2020
Memorandum
Opportunities Existed to Improve HUD’s Responses to Inquiries From Borrowers, Industry Partners, and the General Public Regarding Forbearance and Foreclosure Relief Provided by the CARES Act
As part of the Office of Inspector General’s (OIG) effort to provide oversight of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) relief efforts provided by the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES Act), we reviewed HUD’s responses to inquiries regarding forbearance and foreclosure relief. The objective of our review was to evaluate the accuracy of HUD’s responses to inquiries from borrowers, industry…
September 22, 2020
Memorandum
#2020-PH-0801