Homeowners in the lurch
Today is the final day that buyers who contracted by April 30th to qualify for the $8,000 and $6,500 tax credit may close on their home or else they lose out on those funds.
The number of people impacted by the possible loss of credits has been said to be 80,000 while other media outlets say it’s as high as 200,000.
The Senate originally approved a large bill which included extending the closing date to September 30th because many of the buyers are involved in short sales, but the bill failed to pass in Congress.
In a last-minute-before-the-bomb-goes-off Macguyver style move yesterday, Congress almost unanimously approved standalone bill HR 5623 focused on the homebuyer tax credit.
The House is expected to take up the legislation again today, but until the ink dries, we’ll be holding our breath because the Senate bill introduced last night is not standalone, it includes the contentious unemployment benefits extension, so we’ll see if it passes today. Perhaps the pressure of today’s deadline will force the Senate’s hand… there will be some major nail biting today.
CC Licensed image courtesy of Kevin Burkett via Flickr.com.
rcwithlime
June 30, 2010 at 2:36 pm
Senate needs to wake up and smell the roses. The house passed the bill as a stand alone. Now Senate is playing games with peoples homes in order to pass an unrelated unemployment bill. Let the Home Credit extension pass on it’s own, as that is a no brainer. Does not add any $ to that already observed for those (myself included) meeting the 4/30/2010 deadline. It only gives time to close. The 1st go around showed that 2 months to close was insufficient, but then they repeated the same time frame when the tax credit was extended. Even a child learns, but does not appear that our govt. cares to learn as they have no vested interest. They get paid no matter what (and their pensions are tax exempt as well!) Time for a change. When you vote, vote them out!