(Update) Support for Supplemental Consumer Information Form (SCIF)

Available: Beta 01/10, Prod 02/21

Which customers are impacted?

Customers who use the lender application in Blend for mortgage applications.

How to turn on

The SCIF required fields for homeownership and education will automatically be turned on for all customers on the dates listed above.

The Language preference question is an optional configuration, and customers will need to reach out to Blend Support or their Blend representative to have this enabled in the lender application. Blend will introduce a feature in the near future that will make this question required in the borrower application.

Purpose of Update and Benefit

In May 2022, the GSEs announced that the SCIF will be required in the loan file for all new conventional loans sold to the GSEs on or after March 1, 2023. In order to comply with these new requirements, this release will add in new questions around homeownership counseling and education in the lender application. The questions for counseling and education will only appear in the lender application, and only for mortgage applications.

Another requirement of SCIF is the ability to collect a borrower’s preferred language. Currently, this is an optional configuration in Blend and lenders can select which languages can be selected. Currently, lenders will need to reach out to Blend Support to configure this for their lender applications. In the near future, Blend will be updating the borrower application so that this question appears by default with all options visible (English, Spanish, Chinese, Korean, Tagalog, Vietnamese, Other). These changes to the language preference question in the borrower application will be completed ahead of the March 1, 2023 deadline and will be communicated in Release Notes when available.

LOS Impact

For customers using Encompass, these fields will map to the Home Counseling fields to Encompass for the Homeowner Education and Housing Counseling data points in the L5. Homeownership and Housing Counseling section of the 1003 URLA-Lender input form. See the Encompass Release Notes document issued by ICE on Feb. 6 for more information.

For customers using Empower, the SCIF fields are currently mapping natively except for the education/counseling provider name and ID.

Current Behavior

The Language Preference question is an optional configuration, but the homeownership counseling and education questions did not exist in Blend.

New Behavior

These changes only apply to the lender application.

Language Preference Question
The Language Preference question is an optional configuration in Blend. When enabled, lenders will see the “Language preference” box in the Borrower Information section of the lender application.

Note: This question is now being enabled by default in borrower and lender applications. See the release note titled “Borrower SCIF Language Preference” for more information and timelines for this feature. 

Homeownership Education and Counseling Questions
Lenders will see “SCIF Required Fields” in the Borrower Information section of the lender application. These questions will only appear in the lender application - we do not plan to make them available in the borrower application. The SCIF Required Fields will replace the FHA Required Fields section (which only appeared when the loan type was FHA).

Selecting “No” will not change the UI, and will indicate that the borrower has not completed those requirements. If the counseling & education questions do not apply, lenders should not click on either radio button.

Selecting “Yes” will surface a “Borrower counsel type” with “Counseling” and “Education” as the two options.

Checking either box will show more questions relating to the date of completion, format, provider name, and HUD-approved Agency ID for each counsel type.

The “Counseling format” and “Education format” options can be answered with preset responses in dropdown menus. The options for Counseling format are Face-to-face, Internet, Telephone, Hybrid. The options for Education format are Face-to-face and Internet.

The MISMO, FNMA.xml, and FRMC.xml files will be updated to reflect all answers to these questions, as outlined in this LPA Bulletin (see the Updated Supplemental Consumer Information Form (SCIF) Requirements section beginning on page 6).

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