“Are home eligibility benefits transferable? Can I count my fiance’s income?”

For sons, daughters and spouses of either deceased veterans or from veterans who never used their VA Loan Benefits - are these VA Loan benefits transferable?

For children of veterans, the answer is NO. When the issue concerns spouses of deceased eligible veterans, there are unique circumstances where spouses qualify.

Eligibility of Spouses of Veterans are as follows: 1. the unmarried surviving spouse of a veteran who died as a result of service or service-connected causes, and 2. the spouse of an active duty member who is listed as missing in action (MIA) or a prisoner of war (POW) for at least 90 days. Eligibility under this MIA/POW provision is limited to one time use only.

Does the income of a fiancé count in the debt-to income ratio?

Let's say you are a veteran engaged to be married in the next six months. The couple is purchasing a home for $300,000 with a $0 down payment, yet the Veteran does not qualify on the Debt to Income Ratio and needs his fiancé's income to qualify. Can he be the Co-Borrower?

Until they are legally married, the answer for the VA home loan program is NO. The co-signor must be the legally married spouse of a military member or another eligible veteran.

The veteran loan is still fully guaranteed by the VA. When a military member or veteran wants to bring an unrelated, non-military cosigner, the VA allows this with one major exception. The VA guarantee is limited to the amount of the veteran's interest in the property.  You may have a bit of shopping around to do before finding a lender willing to work with you. The reason is that VA loans are pooled into Ginnie Mae (GNMA) securities and they require a full 25% guarantee from the VA. The limited guarantee prevents this from happening.

If you find yourself in this position, give yourself plenty of extra time to find the right lender.