Two years ago Liane Dunn was sued because gasoline tanks on her property had leaked, causing significant environmental damage to the area surrounding her home. (You can read about the whole story from the Litchfield County Times.) The damage to the property resulted in a bill from Environmental Serivces Management Inc. which totaled over $100,000. That's money that Dunn simply didn't have.
What Dunn did have, however, was her property. She was able to acquire a lump sum payment using a reverse mortgage loan so that she could afford to make the payment that the company was requiring. She is currently looking in to whether or not she can get reimbursed by the government for that payment because of the unique circumstances surrounding the case. But even if she can't, at least she didn't lose her property because the reverse mortgage loan allowed her to access the income that she needed to cover the unexpected cost of damages.
The reverse mortgage can be used for a number of different things in life. It may be an investment tool or it may be a way to continue living in your home after you have retired. This case is an example showing that the reverse mortgage can also be useful in emergencies, when expenses you never would have thought could occur crop up in your life.
