Are you ready to use your veterans home-loan benefit to buy a house?

To get started, you’ll need a Certificate of Eligibility. Go to www homeloans.va.gov and click on VA Form 26-1880 to get a printable form to request your certificate. You’ll need a copy of your DD-214 or its equivalent to go along with the request. Some lenders can get your certificate for you, but not in all cases.

Send the request to: VA Loan Eligibility Center PO Box 20729

Winston-Salem, NC 27120

Or call 888-244-6711 (press 1, 1, then 2)

If you already have a Department of Veterans Affairs loan but want to sell that property and buy another with your eligibility, you can do that under certain circumstances. If the house is paid off and you’ve sold it, you’ll be eligible to buy another. If it’s paid off but you still own it, you can get your eligibility restored one time. Use that same VA Form 26-1880 and provide proof that the loan is paid off. If you let someone assume your VA loan, your eligibility can be restored only if another veteran was the purchaser and has eligibility available or pays off the loan.

Meanwhile, if you already have a VA-backed mortgage that you’ve refinanced, pull out your paperwork and go over it with a sharp eye: It’s possible you were scammed. All across the country right now, veterans are learning that some lenders buried certain unauthorized fees in other categories. In some cases, veterans are getting their money back, but that likely won’t happen unless you find the errors first.

To learn about allowable fees, click the Web site listed above, then Circulars for the Home Loan Program and go to Circular 26-10-1.

More Gulf War Vets

Could Get Treatment

Eric Shinseki, director of the Department of Veterans Affairs, has reviewed “Gulf War and Health Volume 5: Infectious Diseases,” the National Academy of Sciences report that took a look at the long-term effects of diseases that were showing up in Gulf War veterans after exposure to toxic materials.

He is proposing that nine diseases be declared presumptives for Gulf War veterans.

This means that if you’re one of the 175,000 veterans who have been made ill by serving in Iraq or Afghanistan (a quarter of the 679,000 who have served), you won’t have to prove that’s where the illness came from.

The dates of exposure are from 1990 until now for Iraq, and on or after Sept. 19, 2001, for Afghanistan. The diseases are: Shigella, Brucellosis, Nontyphoid Salmonella, Campylobacter jejuni, Coxiella burnetii (Q fever), Malaria, West Nile virus, Mycobacterium tuberculosis, and Visceral leishmaniasis.

The likely sources of exposure are depleted uranium, pesticides, pyridostigmine bromide (anti-nerve agent), infectious diseases, chemical and biological warfare agents, vaccinations (including anthrax and botulinum toxoid) and oil-well fires, smoke and petroleum.

Shinseki said: “By setting up scientifically based presumptive service connection, we give these deserving veterans a simple way to get the benefits they have earned in service to our country.”

A comment period will run until the second half of May.

Under the proposed rule, you’ll only have to prove that you served in the area during that period of time, and that you have one (or more) of the diseases. (For a non-presumptive illness, you’ll still have to prove there’s a connection.)