On March 15, 2012, the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) issued its long awaited final rule on transfer fees. FHFA had proposed a federal regulation which would have banned federally backed mortgages for any property in a community association with a deed-based transfer fee in place. As originally drafted, the proposed rule would have cut off nearly all mortgage funding for the 11 million housing units, or forty-nine percent of all community association housing, that have existing deed-based transfer fees. Read more…