Helping Heroes Keep Their Homes

While there is adequate and widely available support for veterans who are having difficulty meeting their VA mortgage payments, property foreclosures are not uncommon.

One specific new measure is targeted to help veterans avoid foreclosure and subsequent loss of their homes.

In March of 2010, the House of Representatives passed a significant bill to keep veterans in their homes: the amended Heroes Keep Their Homes Act of 2010. This Act amends the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008 to extend through December 31, 2015, providing specified protections for servicemembers relating to mortgages and mortgage foreclosures.

Heroes Keep Their Homes Act of 2010 revives certain of provisions of the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act, allowing, or upon servicemember application requiring, a stay of court proceedings to enforce and adjust a mortgage obligation when the servicemember's ability to comply with such obligation is materially affected by military service.

Under the Heroes Keep Their Homes Act of 2010, the sale, foreclosure, or seizure of property due to a servicemember's breach of obligation is invalidated, except in certain circumstances.

Additionally, Heroes Keep Their Homes amends the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act to state that its requirements governing a servicemember's real or personal property secured by a mortgage apply also to the surviving spouse of a servicemember who dies while in military service and whose death is service-connected, if the spouse is the successor in interest to such property. Thus, military families are protected from potential loss of their home should the military spouse die in service to his or her country.