FHA Borrowers to See New ‘Supplemental Consumer’ Form
After Aug. 28, lenders must give FHA borrowers a Supplemental Consumer Information Form (SCIF) to identify language preferences and other buyer history.
WASHINGTON – The Federal Housing Administration (FHA) will require lenders to use the Supplemental Consumer Information Form (SCIF) when originating mortgages for FHA insurance after Aug. 28, 2023.
The SCIF (Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac Form 1103) is used during the mortgage application process and allows borrowers to identify language preferences and provide information on housing counseling and homeownership education they may have already received.
Form completion is voluntary. Borrowers may choose to provide all, some, or none of the information requested on the form. FHA is requiring the SCIF to help lenders or mortgage servicers to understand how to best serve the applicant if English isn’t their first language, and to determine where the borrower stands in their understanding of the homebuying and mortgage lending processes.
“Borrowers should be able to fully understand their options and obligations when they are seeking mortgage financing,” says Assistant Secretary for Housing and Federal Housing Commissioner Julia Gordon. “Using the SCIF is an important means of obtaining information to assess the breadth of education and language needs of borrowers so that lenders can best meet their needs.”
The form will also give the FHA information on the people it serves for a better aggregate view of language preferences. It says that, in turn, will influence its future actions to continue breaking down language and other barriers to homeownership.
Lenders working with prospective borrowers seeking FHA-insured Title II forward mortgage financing must present the SCIF as part of the mortgage application process. Lenders will then transmit information a borrower chooses to provide to FHA as part of the lender’s required loan application data submissions.
“The SCIF has already been adopted for conventional mortgages, and we believe that its use is even more important for FHA-insured mortgages, given FHA’s outsized role in providing access to mortgage financing for underserved populations,” says Deputy Assistant Secretary for Single Family Housing Sarah Edelman. “This announcement complements the work we recently completed to provide translated versions of mortgage documents and homebuyer education resources.”
On June 13, 2023, FHA announced Chinese, Korean, Spanish, Tagalog and Vietnamese versions of more than 30 single family mortgage documents and related resources associated with FHA programs.
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