Fannie Mae Extends COVID-19 Related Guidance

Fannie Mae recently updated two Lender Letters, LL-2020-03 and LL-2020-04, by primarily extending the dates of certain temporary COVID-19 related flexibilities and policies that Fannie Mae previously released. 

The updates to LL-2020-03 extend the temporary flexibilities for verbal verifications of employment and for powers of attorney to loans with application dates on or before November 30, 2020. The application date deadline for such flexibilities was previously October 31, 2020.  Additionally, the LL-2020-03 updates include a minor change to LL-2020-03’s remote online notarization (RON) policies.  Specifically, the RON policies previously provided in LL-2020-03 were moved to the Fannie Mae Selling Guide. 

Moreover, the LL-2020-04 updates extend the temporary appraisal flexibilities to loans with application dates on or before November 30, 2020 (previously was on or before October 31, 2020). Among other things, these appraisal flexibilities allow for exterior-only inspection appraisals or desktop appraisals when an interior inspection is not feasible because of COVID-19 concerns.

WBK previously reported on the guidance in LL-2020-03 and LL-2020-04 here and here.