USDA HB-1-3555, Chapter 18 (Servicing Non-Performing), § 18.14 — Special Relief Measures
USDA Handbook HB-1-3555 section 18.14 — Special Relief Measures. Full verbatim section text, substring-verified against snapshot 40fcd1ad9e90721f.
Verbatim regulatory text
Verbatim provisions from USDA HB-1-3555, Chapter 18 (Servicing Non-Performing), § 18.14 — Special Relief Measures — each quote is a verified substring of the regulator-published source snapshot, not retyped. Quoted for reference; this is not legal advice. The operational layer (P&P updates, prompts) lives in the regulation update kits.
USDA HB-1-3555, Chapter 18 (Servicing Non-Performing), § 18.14 — Special Relief Measures
• Offer appropriate repayment plans as outlined in Section 2 of this Chapter. • Determine if foreclosure is the only option. The borrower’s income or ability to pay the mortgage, any increase in living expenses, the extent of damage, the delinquency status of the mortgage, and the availability of alternative housing are additional factors to consider. The goal should be a formal relief provision that will cure the delinquency as soon as possible without imposing an undue hardship on the borrower. Forbearance is highly encouraged in disasters. Under forbearance, the servicer can agree to reduce or suspend the borrower’s monthly payments for up to 12 months. At the conclusion of the forbearance the borrower must agree to resume his or her regular monthly payments and to pay additional money at scheduled intervals toward repayment of the amount reduced or suspended. Regular follow-up during a suspension and reassessment of the individual borrower’s circumstances, based upon property inspections, and borrower financial information at the end of the suspension period should be conducted. If the servicer is not actively engaged in workout options with the borrower(s) and believes suspension beyond the 90day period is warranted, the servicer must document the reason to extend a hold on all foreclosure actions and retain the documentation in their collection systems. Failure to do so may impact any future loss claim payment. Servicers may use existing loss mitigation workout options to reinstate a borrower ready to resume mortgage responsibilities. Late charges while the borrower is on a forbearance plan, or paying as agreed on a repayment plan, should not be assessed. The servicer should take appropriate steps to mitigate the credit impact for a borrower for whom a forbearance or repayment plan is extended due to disaster-related circumstances.
Operationalizing USDA HB-1-3555, Chapter 18 (Servicing Non-Performing), § 18.14 — Special Relief Measures
This is verbatim, source-snapshotted regulator text from the Claude for Compliance open corpus. To turn a rule like this into compliance work product: gap-analyze your policies and procedures (P&Ps) against these requirements to surface stale, conflicting, or missing provisions; operationalize any change with a ready-to-run update kit; and produce audit-ready evidence — every step grounded only in the regulator’s own words, never invented.
To work from the whole rulebook rather than this one page: download the corpus — every register on this site, verbatim, each with its source snapshot and effective date — then follow the methodology. It asks your assistant to answer only from the downloaded text, cite the register id and effective date it used, and tell you when the corpus does not cover something instead of filling the gap from memory. Running it locally also means no one sees which regulations you are looking at.
Source of record: https://claudeforcompliance.com/regs/usda-hb-3555-18-14/
· register usda-hb-3555-18-14 · Claude for Compliance. Free to read and download;
see regulatory updates and methodology.