Waivers for the "face-to-face" requirements that the Department of Housing and Urban Development affiliate has were supposed to expire at year-end, but instead will continue through May 31, 2024.

The Federal Housing Administration has floated a modernized policy that could permanently replace the temporary version but was asked for more implementation time.

Servicers had been worried they'd have to revert back to the pre-2020 policies on borrower contact in early default intervention before adopting the new ones because of steps that would have to be taken to finalize the proposal under the Administrative Procedures Act.

"Returning to in-person meetings, even temporarily, unnecessarily complicates a servicer's operations," the Housing Policy Council and two industry associations told FHA Commissioner Julia Gordon in a letter last month.

Face-to-face meetings also have proven ineffective from a borrower's perspective, they said.

"In a sample of three large servicers, in-person meetings were accepted less than 0.1% of the time," the HPC, Mortgage Bankers Association and the National Mortgage Servicers Association wrote in the October letter.

In an earlier letter sent in September with the American Bankers Association, they also asked the FHA to make it clearer that face-to-face contact would no longer be required and that alternative methods such as phone calls or online communications could be used.

"Guidance should make clear that among the available options, a servicer may — but is not required to — offer or provide an in-person meeting," they said.

FHA has been updating several of its policies in response to its experience with alternative foreclosure prevention strategies during the pandemic.