The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) just announced that all HUD-approved Home Equity Conversion Mortgage (reverse mortgage) counselors must use three National Council On Aging (NCOA) tools to help older homeowners determine if a reverse mortgage is right for them. Those tools are:
- Use Your Home to Stay at Home consumer booklet,
- BenefitsCheckUp, and
- a new Financial Interview Tool (FIT)
The NCOA pitches the goal as a way to “give prospective borrowers a holistic view of their options and risks in tapping home equity with these loans” which translates roughly to “we want to make sure counselor are giving honest advice.” Frankly, you can’t blame them, this is an area that is prime for abuse by any unethical mortgage counselors driven more by commission than an honest interest in helping elders.
The Use Your Home to Stay at Home .pdf booklet can be downloaded by clicking here.
A BenefitsCheckUp screening can be conducted by anyone by clicking here.
Visit this NCOA page for more information straight from the source.
Further details on these tools will soon be announced by HUD. Training on FIT will be provided through NeighborWorks.
