Fannie’s VOE Update: How To Use It

Fannie Mae’s October Selling Guide update makes a relatively small change to its VOE guidance: it removes prescribed verification methods and gives lenders more discretion over how they satisfy the requirement. The practical effect will depend on how your wholesale lenders incorporate that flexibility into their own guidelines

What the guidance previously required

Fannie’s earlier guidance spelled out acceptable methods and the documentation associated with them. Employer email verification is one example.

When Fannie added that alternative in August 2022, its announcement stated that the lender:

“must conduct due diligence to confirm the email address for the employer is accurate”

It also required the email to come from the employer’s work address and include the borrower’s name, the employer contact’s name, title and work email address, the contact date, and the borrower’s current employment status.

Fannie Mae Announcement SEL-2022-07, “Verbal verification of employment alternative,” August 3, 2022.

That is the kind of detail the earlier approach provided: an acceptable verification method, followed by specific instructions for documenting it. Lenders could build their procedures around those instructions

What Fannie's VOE update says now

“This verification may be obtained verbally, in writing, through an employment verification vendor, or by other means acceptable to the lender provided it is reasonable, verifiable, and appropriate for the borrower's employment or income type.”

Fannie Mae Selling Guide B3-3.1-04, “Verbal Verification of Employment” — Overview, October 7, 2026

This is much more broad.  It allows for the wiggle room on verification that doesn’t affect most files, but when it does, it sucks. 

Where this could help

I don’t expect this to outright change policy at most wholesale lenders. They already have verification procedures, approved vendors, and documentation standards. A small change in Fannie’s wording probably isn’t going to trigger a complete rewrite.

Where it could help is a file that’s stuck over a very specific documentation requirement.

Say you’re having a hard time getting an employer email from a “business” domain, and the lender keeps coming back to that requirement. You have an employer willing to verify the information, but getting it in the exact format the lender wants is becoming the problem.

That’s where I would bring up the updated language. Fannie’s current standard allows verification by means acceptable to the lender, provided it is reasonable, verifiable, and appropriate for the borrower’s employment or income type

That gives you something specific to ask underwriting to review:

Your condition requires the employer’s response to come from a business email domain. With the updated language in B3-3.1-04, is there another way we can document this that meets your requirements? If that domain requirement is still part of your policy, is there an exception process or additional verification we can provide?

The point is to find out whether the lender is enforcing its own requirement or still following the more prescriptive agency language. Those are different conversations.

If it’s a firm lender requirement, you may still get the same answer. But if the condition is based on what Fannie previously specified, the updated section gives you a reason to ask for another review.

Give underwriting something to review

Before escalating, have your processor lay out what’s available, what’s been difficult to obtain, and the alternative you’re asking the lender to consider. Then ask your wholesale account executive who can review it.

“Fannie changed the rule” is a starting point. “Here’s the updated language, here’s what we can verify, and here’s the alternative we’re asking you to approve” gives the lender an actual request to evaluate.

This probably won’t change how most of your files are handled. But on the file that’s stuck over one specific documentation requirement, it may help get the conversation—and the file—moving again.

Make Sense Processing provides contract processing for loan officers in the broker channel. We prepare and send initial disclosures through lender portals, handle client and third-party communication, help balance closing documents, and upload a small post-closing package to your LOS when the file is finished. partnership@makesenseprocessing.com |Make Sense Processing

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