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Show Veterans Affairs worried about loans home loans are being paid. Service members who are about to be ordered away from home as part of Operation Desert Storm should seek assistance from friends and relatives before leaving to make sure that their homes and mortgages will be taken care of in their absence. VA will seek the cooperation of loan holders in extending forbearance to active duty personnel per-sonnel so that none will lose their homes because they are serving their country. But the final responsibility respon-sibility for making sure there is a home to return to rests with each service man and woman. Pedigo also reported that interest rates on GI home loans have re cently fallen to nine percent. AH service members and veterans with higher rate GI home loans, including in-cluding those who may be behind in their payments, are urged to check with their lenders to see whether they can take advantage of VA's Interest In-terest Rate Reduction Refinancing Program to lower their mortgage payments. The Department of Veterans Affairs Af-fairs (VA) is concerned that the speedy and sudden deployment of U.S. forces to the Persian Gulf region has created unique consequences conse-quences for active duty service personnel per-sonnel who must leave homes and possessions behind. According to Keith Pedigo, director direc-tor of VA's Home Loan Program, service members may have left without making sure that someone would be responsible for watching the property and making the mortgage mor-tgage payments while they are away. Others left families behind to take care of these matters, but their families may have moved out to stay with friends and relatives in order to get help in coping with the stress of the situation, There have been reports of abandoned properties, proper-ties, which may be vandalized, and unpaid home loan installments, which can lead to foreclosure. 'We are concerned about the potential for some negative situations situa-tions arising concerning the homes of active duty service men and women who are now deployed in the Gulf," said Pedigo. "In a wartime war-time situation, concern over self and family take priority over things like houses and monthly mortgage payments." National Guard and reservists who were called to active duty left largely civilian communities and have both neighbors and the protection protec-tion of the Soldiers' and Sailors' Civil Relief Act to help ensure that when their tour of duty is over, they will return and find their homes just as they left them. But there is no comparable protection pro-tection for personnel who bought homes in largely military communities com-munities while on active duty and have remained in uniform since then. VA recommends that service personnel who are already deployed abroad contact family, friends and former neighbors to verify that their homes are being watched and cared for and take steps to make sure their |
