Foreclosure protections for more soldiers after lawmakers draft bill

By Sari R. Updated on 5/8/2013

On Tuesday, Washington D.C. lawmakers introduced a bill that would lengthen foreclosure protections to those soldiers who bought a home after entering active duty.

The bill is known as the Military Family Home Protection Act and was spearheaded by the Committee for Veterans’ Affairs and Armed Services as well as the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.  This bill resumes where the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act ends.

Currently, soldiers can have foreclosure protection under the Servicemember Civil Relief Act if they buy their home before being brought to active duty.  The new Military Family Home Protection Act will give this protection to all soldiers even if they purchased their house after entering active duty.

The bill remains a foreclosure action if a soldier has imminent danger pay or hostile fire.  The Military Family Home Protection Act also brings foreclosure actions to a pause for up to a year for those soldiers who are medically discharged or placed on convalescent status.  This applies, also, to surviving spouses of soldiers who have service-related deaths.

The Military Family Home Protection Act would also increase civil penalties for mortgage violations and would forbid banks from discriminating against soldiers and their families when applying for a mortgage loan.

In addition, the proposed bill would eradicate the primary residence requirement for soldiers who are required to move to another station; this would effectively allow the solider to still be eligible for a mortgage refinance.