FREDDIE MAC ANNOUNCES UPDATED SERVICING ALIGNMENT INITIATIVE REQUIREMENTS

October 26, 2011 Freddie Mac Announces Updated Servicing Alignment Initiative Requirements Today we announced updates to our borrower solicitation requirements in support of the joint-GSE Servicing Alignment Initiative. We believe that these changes will help you work with Freddie Mac Servicers more effectively to solicit your clients for a loan modification or other alternative to foreclosure. Additionally, the changes should offer your clients more effective contact following delinquency, helping to increase the likelihood of a positive outcome. We have strengthened the borrower contact and engagement requirements, which will help you tailor your counseling to the circumstances of your individual clients. We are: Allowing Freddie Mac Servicers to use the results from a collection and loss mitigation tool to choose not to send borrowers who are at a low risk for worsening delinquency a solicitation package between days 31 - 35 of delinquency. This in turn will help you maintain the focus on borrowers most in danger of losing their homes. Requiring Freddie Mac Servicers to continue solicitation and collection efforts when a borrower, who was less than 60 days delinquent at the time of the evaluation and did not qualify for any alternatives to foreclosure, subsequently becomes 60 days delinquent. This will help ensure that these borrowers receive every reasonable opportunity to avoid foreclosure. Providing guidance to Freddie Mac Servicers on the steps to take when a borrower’s current hardship reason is not one of the options in the hardship affidavit section of Form 710, Uniform Borrower Assistance Form. We are instructing Servicers to advise borrowers to provide details of the hardship in their written explanation and submit relevant documentation that supports their current hardship. This change provides borrowers who are experiencing a hardship that caused an increase in expenses or a decrease in income outside of their control with an opportunity to be evaluated for an alternative to foreclosure. These changes are effective immediately. We recently posted Spanish translations of certain Servicing Alignment Initiativeborrower solicitation documents, including Form 710, on FreddieMac.com. We encourage you to review and begin using these documents as you work with Freddie Mac Servicers to obtain the required completed and signed English-language documents from your clients. More Information  Visit the Housing Professionals Resource Center on FreddieMac.com to download our Servicing Alignment Initiative overview fact sheet for housing counselors. Please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any questions. Thank you for your continued support of the Servicing Alignment Initiative. Sincerely, Christina Diaz-Malone Director, National Initiatives 703-903-2558