On January 16, 2019 U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue announced that many Farm Service Agency (FSA) offices will reopen temporarily in the coming days to perform certain limited services.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) opened offices on:
Thursday, January 17 and Friday, January 18, in addition to Tuesday, January 22, during normal business hours.
The offices will be closed for the federal Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday on Monday, January 21. Reopened FSA offices will only be able to provide the specifically identified services while open during this limited time, below is the press release from the USDA Rural Development offices.
February 1, 2019
USDA Rural Development is Moving Forward!
We now have an enacted Fiscal Year (FY) 2019 continuing resolution that provides short-term funding for the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), Rural Development.
As we begin an orderly start-up of our loan and grant activities for FY 2019, we thank you for your patience and support during the lapse in government funding.
We are taking a proactive and customer-focused approach to prioritizing our activities so that we can resume normal operations as quickly as possible.
As Rural Development stakeholders, we will be working closely with you to achieve this goal.
On behalf of the USDA Single Family Housing Guaranteed Loan Program, we appreciate your continued support and patience as we work to issue Conditional Commitments and Loan Note Guarantees requests submitted during the lapse of Government funding.
USDA can work more efficiently with your help:
1. Inactive Loan Files:
If you have a loan submitted to USDA that is no longer active, (a Conditional Commitment or Loan Note Guarantee will not be requested), please email your USDA contact. Include the GUS Application ID and/or Borrower ID in your request. The loan will be released back to the approved lender and they may withdraw the file. This action will ensure USDA does not spend time on requests that are no longer viable.
2. Pending loans that require revision:
If you have performed a Final Underwriting Submission in the Guaranteed Underwriting System (GUS) and the loan file requires corrections or updates, please email your USDA contact and request the release of the loan file back to the approved lender. A new final underwriting submission may be submitted to USDA for a Conditional Commitment request.
3. Resources: The following resources are available to assist you:
GUS Technical Help Desk: 1-800-457-3642
Option #1: for e-Authentication Questions
USDA LINC Training and Resource Library: On-demand trainings, documentation, and resources for origination, GUS, lender loan closing, annual guarantee fee, loan status reporting, and loan servicing.
7 CFR 3555 Regulation and HB-1-3555
Thank you for your participation in the USDA Single Family Housing Guaranteed Program. We look forward to serving you and rural America homebuyers.
Questions regarding this announcement may be directed to the National Office Division at:
(202) 720-1452
Roger Glendenning
Deputy Administrator, Single Family Housing
Rural Housing Service
Information on the locations of FSA offices to be open will be posted:
• On the USDA website. https://www.farmers.gov/sites/default/files/documents/OpenFSAServiceCenters.pdf
• On Twitter at @SecretarySonny and @USDA.
https://twitter.com/SecretarySonny https://twitter.com/USDA
• On USDA’s Facebook page.
https://www.facebook.com/USDA/