Note: The information contained in this article is current as of June 18, 2010. Please consult the online edition of Houston REALTOR® magazine (http://www.hro.har.com) for any updates regarding further action by Congress.

The Senate has amended a bill to give homebuyers who were under contract on a home purchase by April 30 an additional three months to close the deal and claim the federal homebuyer tax credit. Extending the deadline for closing from June 30 to Sept. 30 would allow lenders more time to clear a backlog of 180,000 homebuyers nationwide, said amendment sponsor Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev.

The amendment to HR 4213, the “American Jobs and Closing Tax Loopholes Act of 2010” – which primarily extends unemployment insurance benefits – was approved in a 60-37 vote on June 16. The vote on the amendment was mostly along party lines, with only four Republicans in favor and one Democrat opposed. The Senate has not yet voted on the amended bill itself.

“While I am disappointed that more Republicans did not support this common-sense measure to strengthen the economy and reduce the deficit, I am committed to ensuring that more Nevadans and Americans can become homeowners and that this amendment becomes law,” Reid said in a statement.

The House passed an earlier version of the bill in December, which the Senate amended and approved in March. The House and Senate must resolve differences between versions of the bill before it becomes law.

The National Association of Realtors® supports the amendment, saying Realtors® have reported that as many as one-third of qualified applicants have been told by lenders that their loans will not close before June 30 because of the sheer volume of loan applications in the pipeline.

The amendment does not extend the deadline for homebuyers to qualify for the tax credit, NAR said in urging lawmakers to approve it, but simply extends the deadline for closing transactions already in contract.

“Since these applications were already in the pipeline and figured into the program’s cost, the extension of the closing deadline should not incur any further government costs,” NAR President Vicki Cox Golder said in a statement.

There has been some speculation that some homebuyers will attempt to submit fraudulent claims for the tax credit by backdating documents showing they were under contract by April 30, and that extending the deadline for closing would expose the government to more fraudulent claims.

Source: National Association of Realtors®