Military personnel are highly trained and skilled in various specialties to perform their duties efficiently to safeguard the country. While they have high degree of specialization in the art of combat, many of them are not adept with facing the nitty-gritty of day-to-day life. Being a low-paying job, they need to face up with meeting the demands of their families with their meager salaries. They too find the necessity of taking up some loans to meet certain requirements like a house, educating their children, buying a car, etc. While many of them are faced up with these circumstances, it becomes very important to check on interest rates being offered for such loans as it has to feasible for the military personnel to bear these expenses. In order to safeguard their interests, a loan rate act was passed in the year 2004 for all military loans.



This act that is known as Veteran Benefits Act was approved by President Bush and was brought into effect from 10 December 2004. This act also sought out to make some vital alterations to the program called Veteran Home Loan Guaranty Program. One such change that was brought in is an increase in the upper limit of a loan that could be procured by military personnel to $359,650 from a previous figure of $240,000. It also sought an increase in the amount taken by loans for the purpose of home mortgage in Alaska, Guam, Hawaii and Virgin Islands by fifty percent. Hence, loan rate act has brought in much needed relief to many military personnel by the services it offers.

There are still more added benefits to the act. One such clause includes providing some additional benefits to personnel suffering from occupational disabilities. Personnel who had suffered disabilities of the upper extremities were provided with an additional $50,000 through a grant known as Specially Adapted Housing Grant that aimed at making the house friendlier to these people by making some modifications.

The act also sought to make important changes to the interest rates being charged for loans taken by military personnel. Through this act, it made military loans to be provided at an adjustable rate of interest that could be amended once in a year. Even the revision in the rate of interest has been fixed to a maximum of one percent with each adjustment and to a tune of not more than five percent for the entire tenure of the loan. The initial interest being charged also has to be underwritten at one percent.

Also included in the clauses of the loan rate act is the funding fee for loans. Many personnel who were not eligible for a waiver of the funding fee could now avail it because of the act. In order to be eligible for the waiver, the personnel should be in active service and veterans were not eligible. Now the act has modified it by saying that personnel who are in active duty will be eligible for the waiver if they apply for the loan before they are discharged from active service.

Thus, the loan rate act has worked in many benefits for military personnel trying to take loans. With this act, many military servicemen and women have been benefited in being able to sustain the burden of taking loans with their meager paying jobs.