Posted on 04/14/2009 5:45:25 PM PDT by 1066AD
REAL ESTATE APRIL 14, 2009, 4:02 A.M. ET Older Borrowers, Out in the Cold By ELLEN E. SCHULTZ YUBA CITY, Calif. -- In 2006, Carol Couts, a 66-year-old widow in Yuba City, Calif., was living in her home, payment-free, when a mortgage broker persuaded her to refinance her no-cost mortgage for one that exceeded her monthly income by more than $400.
She can't afford the payments, and unless her lender modifies the loan to make it affordable, she'll lose her home of 25 years.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
In California this is a felony under the recently enacted Elder Abuse statutes. They were enacted to cover almost exactly the same issues in a case in Richmond.
Hey, one of them just got elected President!
I hope to heaven I am not that stupid in 11 years.
It’s amazing how fast you can lose it.
This was a very common con about eight years ago, before specific criminal statutes were enacted to deal with the convoluted circumstances that can be involved.
Especially if you've been irresponsible all your life, and your spouse dies, and there is no longer anyone to slap you upside the head and wake you up!
Even so, you'd think that before giving this tout the time of day the woman would have rubbed her two remaining neurons together and contacted (1) her relatives, (2) the institution holding her reverse mortgage, (3) her lawyer, (4) the Sutter County Department of Elder Affairs, and (5) the state's Department of Consumer Affairs. Not necessarily in that order.
My aunt, who was always single and always in charge of her own finances died at age 80......with a drawer full on tax notices from the IRS. No big thing to straighten out if we had found it out while she was alive, but damn near impossible after she died.
At some point things just break down.
Thats how I want to go. Owing the IRS a bundle....
Are you sure about that?
RM's are pretty highly regulated now.
Anyone that signs on to that is foolish.
I imagine Barney Frank wouldn't like that as he was hand in glove with the scandal and got lots of cash for his political campaigns from the Fanny and Freddy people.
And I would imagine some in his back pocket.
He and Dodd, Pelosi, and Reid should be on trial along with their cohorts in crime at Fanny May. (I spell it that way because Frank gets a kick out of seeing it in that form)
The home owner can receive monthly income from a reverse mortgage as long as he or she lives in the home as a primary residence.
We do financial planning and get called all the time to help seniors. Most are not trustful of people they don't already know. Some distrust their children or listen to the wrong child who really doesn't know much.
Here's a simple test. Ask how many here think it's a good idea to pay off their house or build their retirement upon a tax deferred investment. I'll bet it's over 90%. And they're all sure they're right.
>> OK, true for “older folks,” but this woman was 66!
My mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s at age 57 and passed away from complications of the disease at age 60.
Yes I am very sure about them. I watched an olkder relative who signed up for one have her home takenwhen she broke her hip and went to rehap. Fine print in a lot fo them say that if you are out of the home for X amount of time, in her case it was 30 days the house goes to the lender as if they had died.
Thanks very much for the response, this information is very helpful to me.
When she got it, I can’t tell you but she lost the house probably 3 or 4 years ago?Her kids didn’t even know she got it until she was in rehab and they were able to see the letters the lender was sending.
That was SOP back then.
I'm in the process of investigating how they work now, and what the regulations are that changed the way they are written.
I understand that some people get early Alzheimer’s. What I’m protesting against is the idea that people in their 60s are somehow incompetent based purely on age.
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