Annual Renewal of a FHA Lender's Approval
Summary of Renewal Requirements:

FHA approved lenders renew their approval each year using FHA Connection account. All lenders must download their yearly verification form (V-form) and mail a signed copy to FHA (address provided below). All lenders, except Government Mortgagees must also pay annual renewal fee online. Both of these items are due within 30 days of the lender's fiscal year end. In addition, all nonsupervised lenders (typically mortgage lenders and mortgage broker type companies) must also submit their audited financial statements within 90 days after their fiscal year end via Lender Assessment SubSystem (LASS), which is accessed via the lender's FHA Connection account.

References:

Title II lenders should review Chapter 4 of the Title II Mortgagee Approval Handbook 4060.1, Rev-2  for details on when and what they must do to renew their approval.

Title I lenders should review the same Chapter 4 cited above as well as Title I Letters TI 478 and TI-03-1 .

FHA Connection:

If your company does not have access to the FHA Connection, please go to: https://entp.hud.gov/clas/reginfo.cfm for instructions on how to register.

If your company already has an FHA Connection account, a user must be granted access to "Lender Approval" in the FHA Connection in order to download the V-Form and/or pay the fee. This access is granted by the FHA Connection Application Coordinator in your company, not by HUD. On the FHA Connection, the Application Coordinator clicks on "ID Maintenance", enters their users ID and password, clicks on "FHA ID Administration" link, enters the ID of the user to be granted access in the "By ID" field, scrolls down to "Authorization for Lender Approval Applications", checks "Update Institution" and clicks "Send". If this change is made and the user still does not have access, please contact the FHA Connection Help Desk at SFADMINna hud.gov.

If you have an FHA Connection Account but need to add a FHA Connection Application Coordinator, please submit a new registration request at: https://entp.hud.gov/idapp/html/register.cfm?Coordinator=Y. Each lender can have up to two application coordinators.

V-Form:

Instructions on how to download and print the V-Form are at: https://entp.hud.gov/pdf/mp_lndapp.pdf Please review the information on the V-Form and update such things as addresses before printing the V-Form. The submission of a signed paper copy of the V-Form is still required as part of the recertification process. An authorized corporate officer (vice president or above) of your company must execute the certification at the bottom of the V-Form. The V-Form, which is due within thirty days of your fiscal year end, must be mailed to:

Annual Renewal Fee:

Instructions on how to pay the annual renewal fee electronically via pay.gov at: https://entp.hud.gov/pdf/mp_lndapp.pdf The renewal fee cannot be paid by check.

Use of LASS System to Submit Audited Financial Statements
(Nonsupervised Lenders Only)

All nonsupervised mortgagees and nonsupervised loan correspondents must submit their audited financial statements within 90 days of their fiscal year end electronically via the Lender Assessment SubSystem (LASS).

The LASS homepage at: http://www.hud.gov/offices/hsg/sfh/lass/prodlass.cfm provides information concerning FHA recertification, including links to the LASS User Manual, LASS Line Item Definition Guide, Frequently Asked Questions, HUD Consolidated Audit Guide, etc.

For each reporting period (i.e. annually), lenders are permitted to request one 30-day extension. The request must be received no earlier than 45 days prior to the submission due date and no later than 15 days prior to the submission due date. Lenders submit extension requests via LASS by clicking the "Request Extension" link. Please see http://www.hud.gov/offices/hsg/sfh/lass/pdf/lass515.pdf for information on how to request a 30-day extension for submitting your audit report.

User ID and Passwords:

User IDs for FHA systems are automatically terminated after 180 days for non-use. Passwords expire after 60 days.

Lenders: The FHA Connection Application Coordinator of each lender can reset the password or reinstate any of its own users. If the user who needs his/her password reset or ID reinstated is the FHA Connection Application Coordinator, they need to submit an eMail request to SFAdmin hud.gov which contains the following information:

Lender name

Lender's Title I and/or Title II FHA Lender ID Number Your Name

Your User ID

Mother's Maiden Name

They will be advised by return e-mail when their ID has been reinstated and/or password has been reset.