Mortgage forbearance: state of emergency: wildfire.

Section 3273.23(h) previously required servicers to give 30-day advance notice only before the end of an 'initial' forbearance period. The enrolled version removes 'initial,' extending the 30-day advance notice obligation to all forbearance periods, including extensions beyond the first 90 days.

Maximum forbearance period reduced from 36 months to 24 months, meaning borrowers can no longer receive more than two years of payment relief under this law.

New provision allows mortgage servicers to request additional documentation from borrowers who seek a forbearance extension beyond 12 months total. The documentation must be requested in writing by the investor, guarantor, insurer, or loan holder and may relate to the nature of the hardship, property habitability, or repair efforts. Servicers must share the written request with the borrower upon request.

Late fee and default interest protections now explicitly apply during the waiting period while the borrower awaits notification of their forbearance decision, not just during an active forbearance period.

Servicer notification deadline extended from 10 business days to 21 days for approving or denying a forbearance request. The 21-day period may be further extended by mutual agreement if additional documentation is needed for extensions beyond 12 months.

The pre-forbearance notice requirement (30 days before end of a forbearance period) was broadened from applying only to 'an initial forbearance period' to any 'forbearance period provided pursuant to subdivision (b),' covering all periods rather than just the first.

The maximum mortgage forbearance period was reduced from 36 months to 24 months, meaning borrowers can receive up to two years of payment relief instead of three.

A new requirement (subdivision (a)(3)) obligates borrowers to affirm that the property securing their residential mortgage loan is uninhabitable due to the wildfire disaster. Previously, only a financial hardship affirmation was required.

The urgency clause (former Section 4) was entirely deleted. The bill will no longer take effect immediately upon the governor's signature; it will follow the standard 90-day delay for non-urgency statutes. The vote requirement in the digest also changed from a two-thirds majority to a simple majority, consistent with removing the urgency designation.

Amendment date updated from May 18, 2026 to May 22, 2026, with the prior date retained as a secondary line.

Fixed a duplicated word in the act description: removed a stray 'relief' that appeared after the period, correcting the sentence structure.

Reordered vote threshold language from 'majority 2/3' to '2/3 majority' in the legislative counsel's digest.

Page numbers changed from 98 to 97 throughout, reflecting a one-page reduction likely due to the text corrections above.

Maximum mortgage forbearance period increased from 12 months to 36 months, allowing borrowers up to three years of payment relief instead of one year.

The latest deadline for a borrower to request forbearance was extended from January 7, 2027 to January 7, 2029, giving affected borrowers two additional years to apply.

A new Section 4 declares the act an urgency statute that takes effect immediately upon passage, citing the need to avert economic and social harm from the Eaton Fire, Palisades Fire, and windstorm.

The required vote changed from a simple majority to a two-thirds majority, which is the procedural requirement for passing an urgency statute in California.