Reverse Mortgage Pitfalls Revealed

Saturday, January 2, 2010

If you, your relatives or your friends are contemplating applying for a reverse mortgage in 2010, check out the new guidelines proposed in December by federal regulators. Though aimed at banks and credit unions, the guidelines neatly sum up the potential pitfalls for consumers in the fast-growing reverse-mortgage field. Reverse mortgages typically are restricted to homeowners 62 and older who have untapped equity in their real estate and want to turn it into cash.

Borrowers can receive lump-sum payments, credit lines, periodic disbursements or a combination. The funds that are drawn down incur interest charges and fees for insurance and servicing, which generally must be paid back only after the borrower sells the home, moves, dies, fails to make property tax and insurance payments, or allows the house to deteriorate substantially.

When properly understood by seniors and underwritten responsibly by lenders, reverse mortgages can provide money to supplement retirement income, pay for uninsured medical expenses and keep homes in good repair. But all too frequently, according to regulators, seniors are poorly counseled in advance and don’t comprehend what they are getting into.

They are misled by direct-mail pitches that imply that reverse mortgages are a “government benefit,” cost relatively little, never need to be repaid, represent “income for life” and carry “no risk.” In fact, reverse mortgages often entail high upfront origination fees and substantial insurance and servicing charges — well beyond the costs associated with other financing alternatives that may be available to seniors, such as home-equity loans, credit lines, sale-leaseback plans and deferred-payment loans.

Banks and credit unions need to spell all this out for seniors in advance of taking reverse-mortgage applications, regulators said. This is a financial product that requires extra time and personal financial counseling upfront — not only because the applicants are elderly, but also because reverse mortgages themselves are inherently complex.

As to being a “government benefit,” they are not. Though the predominant form of reverse mortgage is the HECM, or Home-equity conversion mortgage, insured by the Federal Housing Administration, the loan itself comes from private lenders. Those lenders — not the borrowers — are insured by the government against loss.

Some borrowers are not even aware that the transactions they sign up for are debt instruments requiring repayment. Lenders’ marketing materials may make that problem worse by glossing over the payback requirements. According to the regulators’ guidance, some lenders’ marketing material “has prominently stated that the consumer is not incurring a mortgage, even though the fine print states otherwise.”

Read more here…..

Or visit these other websites on the topic

HUD

AARP

Reverse Mortgage Blog