Reverse mortgage information for consumers

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For most borrowers, this means paying off your remaining mortgage debt with part of your reverse mortgage. This is easiest to achieve if you have at least 50% equity or so in your home. You must live in the home for the entire term of a reverse mortgage, although hospitalizations of 12 months or less are okay. You'd find yourself in a position where you must repay the loan at a time when doing so might be impossible if you require an extended stay in a long-term facility. A reverse mortgage lender can foreclose and take your property if you fail to repay the loan when you move out.

A reverse mortgage can certainly ease the stress of paying your bills in retirement or even improve your lifestyle in your golden years. On the positive side, reverse mortgages can provide money for anything you want, from supplemental retirement income to money for a large home improvement project. As long as you meet the requirements, you can use the funds to supplement your other sources of income or any savings you’ve accumulated in retirement. Your reverse mortgage debt is likely to increase exponentially as time goes by because interest piles on incrementally. Your lender might opt for foreclosure if and when your loan balance reaches the point where it exceeds your home's value.

Servicing fees, if charged, are usually around $30 per month and can be allowed to accrue onto the loan balance (they don't need to be paid out of pocket). Similar to loan-to-value in the forward mortgage world, the principal limit is essentially the percentage of the value of the home that can be lent under the fha hecm guidelines. Most pls are typically in the range of 50% to 60% of the mca, but they can sometimes be higher or lower.

Only one spouse might be a borrower if only one spouse holds title to the house, perhaps because it was inherited or because its ownership predates the marriage. The nonborrowing spouse could even lose the home if the borrowing spouse had to move into an assisted living facility or nursing home for a year or longer. Both spouses have to consent to the loan, but both don’t have to be borrowers, and this arrangement can create problems.

While they might feel like income to the homeowner, the irs considers the money to be a loan advance. Reverse mortgages can be a great financial decision for some, but a poor decision for others. Be sure to understand how central mortgage work and what they mean for you and your family before deciding.

If two spouses live together in a home but only one spouse is named as the borrower on the reverse mortgage, the other spouse is at risk of losing the home if the borrowing spouse dies first. A reverse mortgage must be repaid when the borrower dies, and it’s usually repaid by selling the house. If the surviving spouse wants to keep the home, the mortgage loan will have to be repaid through other means, possibly through an expensive refinance. In addition to one of the base rates, the lender adds a margin of one to three percentage points.