One of the questions that many people have about their reverse home mortgage loans is "what actions or non-actions will trigger the reverse home mortgage loan to come due?" These people often worry that staying in the home too long after getting a reverse mortgage loan is going to cause them to get kicked out of the home or to have to pay their reverse mortgage loan back. This isn't the case.
As pointed out in a recent reverse mortgage blog post, there are basically three different situations which can cause your HECM reverse mortgage to come due:
1. Death of the person who took out the reverse home mortgage loan. In the case of spouses, death of the last spouse remaining. At this time, the reverse mortgage comes due and the remaining family members must deal with the decision about what to do with the home.
2. Leaving the home. When the borrower chooses to leave the home via sale of the home or is forced to leave the home for more than one year because of ailments or other responsibilities, the home ceases to be considered the primary home of the borrower and therefore the reverse mortgage loan comes due.
3. Failure to maintain or make payments on the home. It is the borrowers responsibility to keep the home up to liveable standards and to pay things like property taxes. Failure to do so can result in required repayment of the reverse mortgage loan.
Barring these three basic situations, the reverse home mortgage borrower should be able to remain comfortably in the home without having to repay the reverse mortgage.
Question of the Day: Are there any other situations that would trigger repayment of a traditional HECM reverse mortgage loan?
