Section 538 New Fee Structure For Initial and Annual Guarantee Fees

CARH’S BROADCAST E-MAIL – Regulatory Alert

In today’s Federal Register, USDA’s Rural Housing Service published a Notice entitled, New Fee Structure for Section 538 Guaranteed Rural Rental Housing Program Initial and Annual Guarantee Fees. CARH’s Lenders Committee and Board of Directors have long supported a new fee structure for new loans, and we appreciate our members who were crucial in providing feedback and helped make this happen.

In a separate information bulletin about the published Notice, the Office of Multifamily Housing stated the following:

• The effective date for the new fees will be April 4, 2022. Applications eligible for the reduced fees are those without fully executed conditional commitments (not signed by both the Agency and Lender) as of the date the notice is published. Applications ineligible for the reduced fees are those with fully executed conditional commitments (signed by both the Agency and Lender) as of the date the notice is published, or loans obligated prior to October 1, 2021. The Agency is reducing Initial and Annual Guarantee fees across-the-board for eligible applications. Applications meeting qualifications in one of the following three categories will receive further reduction in the Initial and Annual Guarantee fees: (1) Green and Energy Efficient, (2) Preservation of Existing Section 515, 514/516 Rural Development Properties, and (3) Workforce Housing. In order to receive the additional fee reduction for any of these three categories, documentation must be submitted to the Agency along with the application package.

  As a reminder, applicants will continue to submit a completed NOSA Response Form to the Agency. Please use the latest version of the NOSA Response Form after the new fee structures are implemented. The updated fillable NOSA Response Form containing information for the new fees will be available on the Rural Development Multifamily Housing Loan Guarantees | Rural Development website, on April 4, 2022. Click on the “To Apply” tab to access the updated form.

  If you have questions, please contact Jonathan Bell, Director, Processing and Report Review Branches – Production and Preservation Division at jonathan.bell@usda.gov or Abby Boggs, Branch Chief, Program Support Branch – Production and Preservation Division at abby.boggs@usda.gov.

Please contact the CARH national office at carh@carh.org or 703-837-9001 should you have questions or concerns. For other news and information affecting the affordable rural housing industry, please visit the Newsroom on CARH’s website, www.carh.org.