Mortgage Trade Groups Urge Rollback Of Proposed Va Loan Fee Hikes

The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) and the Community Home Lenders of America (CHLA) are urging Congress to revise proposed increases to fees on U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) home loans. The idea to raise fees was included in the Sharri Briley and Eric Edmundson Veterans Benefits Expansion Act of 2026, also known as H.R. 6047.

In a letter sent Thursday to the leadership of the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, MBA praised the legislation’s goal of expanding disability and survivor benefits for veterans but said it cannot support the bill in its current form.

The trade group cited concerns that the bill funds these benefits by placing additional financial burdens on veterans who use the VA home loan program.

Specifically, the MBA highlighted three provisions of H.R. 6047: extending the VA home loan funding fee to 2036, raising the rate on Interest Rate Reduction Refinance Loans (IRRRLs) to 1.4%, and increasing fees for loan assumptions. The group said these changes could reduce access to affordable home financing, particularly for veterans with modest incomes.

“Homeownership is a foundational component of long-term financial stability — and it should not continue to be treated as a primary source of revenue to enable policy changes outside of the home loan program,” Bill Killmer, the MBA’s senior vice president of legislative and political affairs, said in the letter.

MBA noted that veterans are facing “one of the most challenging housing affordability environments in decades,” with elevated interest rates, limited inventory and rising home prices. The trade group said increasing fees could discourage participation in the VA program and counteract its purpose of lowering upfront costs and down payments for veterans.

The letter called on lawmakers to remove or substantially modify the proposed fee increases and reaffirmed MBA’s willingness to work with Congress to ensure veterans have access to the VA home loan program.

CHLA also lauded the House committee’s decision to reject the initial bill, saying that its action protects military families from unnecessary fee hikes.

“As we stated in our letter to the Committee last month, we appreciate and support the underlying purpose of the bill, but asking military families to pay more to provide benefits to other military families is not the answer here,” Scott Olson, CHLA’s executive director, said in a statement.

CHLA noted that it has “consistently opposed proposed fee hikes for VA and GSE loans.” It previously wrote to the committee in 2022 and in 2025 as it sought a “reduction in VA home loan mortgage guarantee fees charged to veterans and active-duty personnel using their earned-benefit home mortgages.”

The proposed fee increases would have included a 30 basis-point (bps) hike to 2.45% for first-use VA mortgages and a 100-bps increase to 4.3% for subsequent-use loans. CHLA noted that VA mortgage guarantee fees remain above the actuarial amount needed to protect taxpayers, and it warned that additional increases would further burden veterans.

“There are few groups more deserving of support than surviving spouses and Veterans with severe service-connected disabilities, and that is exactly who H.R. 6047 is designed to help. But the same could be said of Active Duty servicemembers, and under this proposal, they would bear the cost of expanding these benefits through higher VA home loan costs,” Brendan McKay, co-founder and chief advocacy officer for the Broker Action Coalition (BAC), said in a statement.

“The BAC strongly supports the intent behind H.R. 6047 and the expanded benefits it provides. However, we have serious concerns with policies that increase the cost of homeownership for Active Duty servicemembers. These are two incredibly worthy priorities, and they should not be pitted against each other.”