New York State Homeowner Assistance Fund Application Guide

Get Started

First, we’ll ask you some basic prequalifying questions. You’ll probably know most of the answers right away.

Do you own a home in New York State?
This includes a single family or 2-4 unit house, manufactured home, co-op, or condo. Is your home in New York State your primary residence?
A primary residence is the home that a resident ordinarily lives in most of the time. You must live in the home for which you are seeking HAF assistance, and it must be your primary home. What is your ZIP code and the county you live in? How many individuals live in your household? What’s the total combined annual income of all household members over the age of 18?Total combined income means pay before taxes and deductions. Did your household experience a loss of income or an increase in expenses as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic on or after January 21, 2020? You will be asked to identify some demographic information including things like race and ethnicity if you are a senior citizen, if you live with a disability, if you have access to the internet and if your preferred language is something other than English.
Answering these questions honestly is very important because the NYS HAF program has a set aside of funds specifically for these populations. Do you have a mortgage or reverse mortgage on your home? Are you delinquent on any monthly housing payments including condo, coop fees, a chattel loan, or property taxes? Is anyone in your household currently unemployed or underemployed because of COVID-19? Are you currently in forbearance? Will your forbearance end in the next 60 days?
NYS HAF only accepts applications from homeowners whose forbearance plans have ended or will end within 60 days.

Register

If you meet the prequalification requirements , we’ll ask you to register with your full name, an email address, phone number, preferred contact method, confirm preferred language, and best time of day to contact you. You’ll also need to create a password by responding to an email in your inbox, which will allow you to save your application and return to it as needed.

Answer Questions About the Primary Applicant and Your Property

Next, we’ll ask you a series of additional questions about you so that we can keep in contact, as well as information about your property.

Primary Applicant Information

Is there an alternate point of contact?
You’ll need to provide a name, email address, and phone number. What’s your Social Security Number and birth date (optional)?
If you provide us with this information, we may be able to automatically verify your income and won’t have to ask you to upload income documents. Are you working with a HUD Approved Housing Counseling Agency or Non-Profit Legal Service Provider?
Please provide the name of the approved HUD housing counseling agency or non-profit legal service provider, as well as the name, email address and phone number of your point of contact at the agency.
Property Information

What type of property is your primary residence?
This program is for people who reside in a single-family home; condominium unit; 2-4 unit property in which you are living in one of the units as your primary residence; manufactured homes; or a cooperative unit (either limited equity and traditional shareholder market unit) What is your full street address?
A tool will offer an automatic lookup. If your property is not listed, we’ll ask you to input your information manually. Is there an active foreclosure on the property you are seeking assistance for, meaning, you are behind on your mortgage, taxes, or other housing payments and are being sued in court ?
If so, we’re here to help. We will make sure that a case manager or legal services provider contacts you about your case right away. Once you’ve answered these questions, we’ll ask you to help us verify your identity by giving us permission to run an automated look up based on your date of birth through a system called Precise ID (this won’t affect your credit score). If you decline to give us permission, you will need to upload an acceptable identity document. (See Document Checklist)

Next, we’ll ask to verify that you own the property and the property type. Again, we’ll try to do this automatically based on the information that you provided using only your address through an automated public record system. You will be asked to verify that the address we found is the home that you own. If not, you will be asked to upload a document — likely your deed — to verify you own the home. (See Document Checklist)

Answer Questions About Race, Ethnicity, and Other Demographic Information

We collect demographic information at the request of the federal government, which will monitor the program’s compliance with fair housing and civil rights laws. Additionally, the New York State Homeowner Assistance Fund prioritizes aid for socially disadvantaged individuals. The program does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national origin, religion, sex, familial status, and disability.

What is your race?
Are you Black/African American, Native American, Native Alaskan, Asian, Pacific Islander, Native Hawaiian, or White? What is your ethnicity?
Hispanic/Latinix or non-Hispanic/non-Latinx Do you belong to a vulnerable social group?
This includes senior citizens, people whose first language is not English, those with limited access to the internet, or who have a physical or mental disability.

Answer Questions About Your Household

Now we’ll need to collect some information about your household. We’ll ask you to provide information about each person over the age of 18 who lives in your primary residence, including full name and date of birth.

Note: The program can compare household member data directly with various State income and unemployment reporting datasets to validate household income if you provide us with permission. This can help us process your application faster and reduce the number of documents you will need to submit.
While not required (and it will not affect your eligibility), you are encouraged to provide a Social Security number for each income contributing adult member of your household. Providing this information may allow us to verify household member income via the NY State Department of Labor income and unemployment reporting databases.

Other questions we will ask:

Is the household member unemployed or underemployed because of COVID-19?

Verify Your Income

If you have provided a Social Security number for yourself and each member of your household, we will try to verify your income eligibility automatically with your permission.

However, if you do not provide that information, we will ask you to describe your household income and provide valid income documentation for each household member (See Document Checklist). We need income verification to see if you are under the income threshold, which is 100% Area Median Income (AMI) for your county. For reference, you may use this [link] to view AMI by every county and household size in New York State.

Answer Questions About Your Mortgage or Reverse Mortgage

If you have a mortgage or a reverse mortgage, we will ask you a series of questions to verify your information.

Mortgage Questions

How many mortgages do you have on your home? What is the name of your mortgage servicer? What is your loan or account number? Are you currently delinquent on any of your mortgages? How many months are you behind on your mortgage? How much do you normally pay every month on your mortgage? Has your mortgage servicer offered you a loan modification to address your arrears or forbearance amount in the last 12 months? Based on your current household income, and putting aside your current delinquency do you have the financial means to pay your monthly mortgage payments going forward? Can you provide us with the last 4 digits of the primary mortgage borrower's SSN?
We will need this information to communicate with your servicer on your behalf and to confirm your loan details. Do you also live in a condo or co-op and pay separate maintenance or HOA fees?
Reverse Mortgage Questions

What is the name of your lender or mortgage servicer? What housing costs are you currently behind on?
Select and provide the amount past due for any of the following: property taxes, homeowner’s insurance, flood insurance, and/or condo/co-op/HOA fees. We’ll also ask you to upload either a mortgage statement or document generated by your mortgage servicer that includes your original balance and a statement of your past due amount (delinquency). This will help us to verify the information that you have provided to us and process your application.

Can I apply on behalf of a family member or friend who needs help?

Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry's standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book.

Answer Questions About Other Housing Costs (Non Mortgage)

NYS HAF is open to homeowners who may not have a mortgage but who may be delinquent on other types of housing payments such as property taxes, sewer and water bills, coop or condo monthly fees, or personal loans used to buy a manufactured home. You will only be asked to supply information for the types of housing costs that apply to you on which you have fallen behind.

Property Tax Assistance

What is the name of the property tax entity you owe money? What is the past due balance?
Past due balance means more than 30 days.
Manufactured home loans
Applicants should understand that a manufactured home loan is different from “lot rent.” NYS HAF can only assist homeowners who have fallen behind on a loan that you used to purchase your home, and not your monthly lot rent paid to site your home in a manufactured home park. For those who are behind on “lot rent” please visit [LINK TO ERAP] which is another state program that may assist you with delinquent lot rent.

Are you past due on your manufactured home loan (monthly principal & interest only)?
This may include a chattel loan or retail installment contract for manufactured or mobile home. What is the name of the entity servicing the loan (the name of the company or person you normally make monthly payments to on your home loan)? What is the name of the entity servicing the loan (the name of the company or person you normally make monthly payments to on your home loan)? What is the phone number of the loan servicer (if known)? What is the past due balance?
Past due balance means more than 30 days. How many months are you behind in payments?

Co-op maintenance/condo or homeowner association fees

Are you past due on your co-op maintenance, condo or homeowner association fees? What is the name of the co-op /condo or homeowner association? What is the phone number for the condominium association (if known)? What is the past due balance? total amount you owe?
Past due balance means more than 30 days Based on your current household income, do you have the financial means to pay any of the non-mortgage payments requested above moving forward? Depending on what type of housing payment you have from the list above, we’ll ask you to upload a document detailing account information and current and/or past due balances, such as your most recent statement. If you are applying for multiple types of applying debt you will be asked to upload a document of proof for each type of delinquency.

Attest That Certain Information You Provided is True

You will be asked to agree that all of the information you have provided to the program in your application is true and accurate. You are required to acknowledge that knowingly making a false statement to obtain NYS HAF benefits is punishable under criminal law.

These are the statements that you must confirm are true and accurate:

Financial Impact Due to COVID: To be eligible under the NYS HAF program, homeowners must attest to the fact that they had a financial impact as a direct result of COVID which means either a meaningful reduction in income or a meaningful increase in expenses Household Income:The gross annual household income for your household must be accurate. You will sign a statement attesting that it is accurate. Primary Residence:You will be asked to attest to the fact that the home for which you are applying for NYS HAF is your primary residence, meaning you occupy that home most of the year. Ability to Pay: You will need to attest to the fact that you will be able to pay your housing expenses going forward once the program has assisted you in paying off your delinquency, unless your application is for ongoing mortgage payments

Consent and Release

Before you can submit your application, we will ask you to sign a consent and release form that allows us to ask for information and negotiate on your behalf with a mortgage servicer or a non-mortgage debt holder. In addition, we will ask you to sign a statement allowing a third party (if you have identified one) to communicate with us on your behalf.

Submit Your Application

If you’ve agreed to our terms and conditions and hit the submit button, your application will go to the NYS HAF team for review. A case manager will contact you to discuss any additional information we may need to complete our review. Document CheckList

NYS HAF Funds Are Limited

Submitting an application to NYS HAF does not guarantee that you will receive funding. We must confirm that each applicant meets all NYS HAF eligibility requirements before awarding funds. Funds may run out before we are able to help all eligible applicants.