If you have an FHA mortgage and youâve fallen behind, the number of times you can leave a trial payment plan sitting on the table just got capped at two. On the third one you donât accept, your servicer marks it a failure and the path to foreclosure opens back up.
This isnât a law youâll hear about on the news. Itâs a HUD letter, which is how most of the rules that decide whether you keep your house actually arrive.
FHA published Mortgagee Letter 2026-08 on June 23. Servicers can run it now and must run it no later than September 21, 2026. It covers every FHA-insured single family forward mortgage, which means a lot of first-time buyers and a lot of low-down-payment loans.
Two things changed for you. A third failure to accept a trial payment plan agreement during the same default is now a failed trial plan by itself. HUDâs reasoning, in its own words, is to stop borrowers from âdeliberately choosing to repeatedly fail to accept a TPP.â And you no longer get unlimited do-overs: your servicer has to re-review you for help before starting foreclosure only when your circumstances changed in a way that affects what you qualify for.
A trial payment plan is the three months of on-time payments you make to prove a permanent fix will hold. Four months if youâre in imminent default. Get through it and the modification or partial claim gets signed.
Hereâs the part worth reading twice. You donât accept a trial plan by signing anything. HUD is explicit: youâre not required to sign and return the agreement, and paying that first installment at or above the required amount is acceptance. The servicer has to put the agreement in your hands at least 15 days before the first payment is due.
So the thing that saves your house is a payment, not a signature. And a scheduled trial payment that doesnât land by the last day of the month it was due is a failure. No grace, no partial credit.
The same letter does two things in your favor, and nobody is going to call and tell you. You can now make trial payments ahead of the month theyâre due, so being early no longer counts against you. And your late charges have to be waived during the trial period as long as youâre paying as agreed.
Take the first trial payment plan your servicer offers and make that first payment on time. Holding out for a better offer is now a habit with a hard limit of two.
Read the agreement the day it shows up. Confirm the amount and the exact due dates, and know that the number can move: HUD now allows the payment to change between the trial plan and the permanent fix when property taxes or insurance go up. If your income or your household situation has genuinely changed, put it in writing before you reach a third refusal, because a real change in circumstances is the only thing that still buys you another look.
If youâre current and just want to know whether your payment is survivable, run it through our mortgage calculator and read the options on our mortgages hub.
File this away if it doesnât apply today. September 21 is the date every FHA servicer has to be running the new rules, and the borrowers who get hurt by it will be the ones who assumed the offer would come around again.
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