The Federal Housing Administration has announced that it has taken steps to streamline its case number assignment process for spot approvals on condo units.
The streamlining by the Department of Housing and Urban Development unit is designed to further expedite a process that allows mortgage companies to get a case number for loans on single units without full building approvals, subject to concentration limits. Spot approvals are typically limited to 10% of units or two for projects with less than 10.
Case numbers now may be automatically assigned to expired condominium project approvals or ones rejected because they lack a registered SUA case number. Lenders previously needed to submit information on single units through a manual review process to get spot approvals.
To request a case number through FHA Connection in the event of an "expired" or "rejected-register SUA" status, lenders will need to check the system's list for a condominium's identifier, confirm eligibility based on concentration, and enter the ID if one exists.
"If all required information is entered in FHAC and the condo ID reflects one of the statuses above, the system will automatically assign a case number," the administration wrote in an information bulletin issued May 20.
There may be some exceptions when it comes to assigning the SUA case number. If lenders run across this, they should revert to working with FHA staff on a manual review and assignment process.
The first Trump administration revived FHA's spot approval process. It had previously run into some challenges during President Obama's time in the White House related to foreclosures and losses.
The new automation may prevent some of the challenges for single-unit condominium approvals that surfaced during a government shutdownlast fall.
FHA Commissioner Frank Cassidy has been on leave and Ginnie Mae President Joseph Gormley has been serving in both roles.
Gormley has been delegating some of his FHA responsibilities to other administration officials such as Matt Jones, deputy assistant secretary for single-family housing at HUD.
