Over the last month, storms throughout the Southwest have dumped massive amounts of rain on Texas and Oklahoma and caused widespread flooding. Now that the storms have relented, the residents of the affected areas are beginning to assess the damage and figure out what’s next.
For any affected homeowners whose mortgages are owned by Freddie Mac, some relief may be headed their way.
The government-sponsored enterprise announced Wednesday that its “full menu” of relief policies for borrowers affected by disaster is being extended to homeowners whose homes were damaged or destroyed by the storms that hit Oklahoma and Texas.
According to a release from Freddie Mac, its disaster relief policies are targeted to borrowers with homes in presidentially declared major disaster areas where federal individual assistance programs are being made available to affected individuals and households.
"Freddie Mac strongly encourages Texas and Oklahoma residents whose homes or businesses were affected by these terrible storms to call their mortgage servicer,” Freddie Mac’s vice president of single-family servicer performance management, Yvette Gilmore, said.
“Borrowers with mortgages owned or guaranteed by Freddie Mac may benefit from our full range of mortgage relief options,” Gilmore continued. “These options include forbearance on mortgage payments for up to one year. We strongly encourage borrowers to contact their servicers to discuss mortgage relief."
Freddie Mac said that other relief options include waiving assessments of penalties or late fees against borrowers with disaster-damaged homes and not reporting forbearance or delinquencies caused by the disaster to the nation's credit bureaus.
Freddie Mac also said that reminding servicers to consider borrowers who work in eligible disaster areas, but have homes in unaffected areas, for Freddie Mac's standard relief policies, which include forbearance or mortgage modifications.
