Expanded Homeowners Assistance Program could help with BRAC hardships
I found the following article on the Army.mil site and wanted to pass it along here. After all the only useful resource is the one we KNOW about.
Expanded Homeowners Assistance Program could help with BRAC hardships
Excerpt
Jun 29, 2009
By Rob McIlvaine, FMWRC Public Affairs
ALEXANDRIA, Va. (Army News Service, June 29, 2009) — While the Base Realignment and Closure decisions of 2005 are causing upheaval for some families, help is available through the Department of Defense National Relocation Program, the Homeowners Assistance Program, and soon, the Expanded HAP, thanks to the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.
Besides standard Permanent Change of Station or PCS entitlements, the Department of Defense National Relocation Program provides relocation services, including a guaranteed home buyout process, to eligible DoD civilian employees so they can sell their homes at the prior-duty station and locate housing at the new duty station.
Its primary benefit, known as Guaranteed Home Sale, offers an alternative to the PCS reimbursement process. It also offers other valuable services such as the Home Marketing Incentive Payment, a financial-incentive-bonus payment that may be authorized for employees who successfully market their homes.
Since its inception in 1987, the relocation program has helped thousands of employees sell their homes through the Guaranteed Home Sale Program, rent their homes through the Property Management Program, and purchase or rent in a new town through Destination Services. The complete DoD National Relocation Program Handbook, revised December 2008, explains in detail the services available and the process required to obtain these services.
The traditional HAP program provides benefits for transferring Soldiers and civilian employees only when an economic impact study determines that the depreciation of home values is specifically linked to the closure of a nearby military installation, according to David Gage, chief of the National Relocation Program Office for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Baltimore District, “In that case,” Gage said, “HAP guarantees all or a portion of the difference between the price a property sells for and the estimated value of the property prior to the base closure announcement.”
Expanded HAP will help even more.
On May 14, Vice President Joe Biden announced DoD’s plan to add $555 million in funding from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to expand the HAP to help offset the effects of the country’s struggling housing market.
“The recently passed economic stimulus program that expanded the HAP eligibility guidelines to provide some financial benefits for BRAC-affected servicemembers and civilian employees who sell their homes at prices less than their purchase price or less than the mortgage balance owed, without requiring any economic impact study,” Gage said.
This temporary expansion, which includes the payment of closing costs to transferring servicemembers and civilian employees affected by BRAC 2005, was possible through the efforts of the Army Family Action Plan committee members who played a positive role in reviving the PCS issue.
**SNIP**
“When the implementing guidance (from DoD) is issued, employees who are eligible for HAP benefits who have already sold their homes can still file for HAP benefits after the fact,” Gage said.
Employees who are or will be moving due to BRAC can use the DNRP for the home sale at current market value, and file for HAP benefits to provide any additional benefit (e.g., loss-on-sale or negative equity payments) for which they may be entitled.
The DNRP Web site, http://www.nab.usace.army.mil/dnrp.htm, includes info and a link to the HAP Web page.
The guidelines for eligibility for expanded HAP benefits are already established, and can be found at the HAP Web site: http://hap.usace.army.mil/
