President Biden will sign an executive order Tuesday aimed at helping Americans facing foreclosure amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
Biden's Cabinet departments will organize to extend the current moratorium on foreclosure and extend the window for people to apply for mortgage forbearance, the White House detailed in a Tuesday preview of the order. The move comes as millions of Americans remain unemployed and 12 percent of homeowners with mortgages have missed payments, CBS News reports via Census Bureau figures.
The measure will allow anyone with a federally guaranteed mortgage apply for a pause or reduction in their payments until June 30. It will also add six months of forbearance for anyone who applied for the benefit on or before June 30 of last year. Anyone with a federally backed mortgage will also be exempt from foreclosure under the extension. These measures will cover 70 percent of existing single-family home mortgages, the White House said.
Biden has issued 30 executive orders throughout the first month of his presidency, with several aimed at tackling the COVID-19 pandemic and its economic effects. The Trump administration first paused foreclosures and evictions last March, and Biden extended the pause most recently on the first day of his presidency. But the eviction moratorium is still set to expire March 31, and this order makes no mention of it.