WASHINGTON–The Defense Credit Union Council (DCUC) has sent a letter to members of the House Financial Services Committee seeking to raise awareness of an issue it said may prevent Veterans from accessing their VA Home Loan benefits based upon recent court decisions.
The letter was sent ahead of a committee hearing titled “Housing Solutions: Cutting Through Government Red Tape.”
In its letter, DCUC said many of its member credit unions are concerned veterans will now opt to go unrepresented at the bargaining table when purchasing a home because the VA Home Loan prevents them from paying a commission to a buyer agent.
This concern follows the National Association of Realtors' (NAR) new rule to settle legal claims from home sellers who argued that the trade group’s commission policy forced them to pay excessive fees, DCUC stated.
‘Picking Up the Bill’
In its message to the committee DCUC argued that once the N.A.R. settlement goes into effect, offers of commission will likely cease due to the new rule being deemed as “anticompetitive.
“Without seller agents splitting their commission with buyer agents, buyers who use a real estate agent will now be expected to pick up the bill for their own agents’ services,” said Chief Advocacy Officer Jason Stverak in a statement. “While we applaud the Department of Veterans Affairs decision to put in place a temporary fix, we believe that Congress needs to address this issue with legislation to ensure veterans and their families are not denied access to affordable housing financing options.”
DCUC called on the committee to continue working with DCUC, the VA, and other associations and agencies dedicated to finding a permanent legislative solution to this issue so that our Nation’s veterans’ and their families are afforded the ability to purchase a home with their government-backed benefits.
ACU Sends Letter on Zelle, P2P Issues
Separately, ahead of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations hearing held earlier this week on protecting consumers from fraud via Zelle and other P2P platforms, America’s Credit Unions wrote a letter providing the credit union industry’s perspective.
“Today, the vast majority of transfers enabled by Zelle’s network are processed without issue,” wrote ACU President and CEO Jim Nussle. “However, fraud remains an ongoing battle, requiring consumers, institutions, and government stakeholders to constantly adapt to new social engineering techniques that exploit weaknesses in human judgment. Scams that prey on the fallibility of consumers can leverage any channel for monetary gain—not just Zelle.
‘Significant Investments’
“Credit unions continue to make significant investments in security and fraud mitigation technologies to protect their members from scams and identity theft,” added Nussle.
Nussle called on the subcommittee to “consider solutions that leverage the experiences and insights of a broader range of stakeholders.”
“Ideally, such solutions should aim to prevent fraud before it occurs and should include bolstering the resources of law enforcement, educating consumers about fraud and scam risks, and creating a level playing field between insured depository institutions and underregulated companies,” he concluded.