A special task force has been appointed by the National Reverse Mortgage Lenders Association to review the latest draft of the industry financial assessment that would be used to assess whether borrowers can meet the tax and insurance payments on their loans. The task force, a seven-member committee of NRMLA board members, will identify data sources and help direct analysis that will aid in developing an assessment further.
“The committee has identified a number of data elements that would be useful to analyze to discern characteristics of borrowers and behavioral patterns that might be indicators of higher likelihood for technical default,” Peter Bell, NRMLA president, told RMD. “Analyzing such data, to the extent it is available, is intended to help fine-tune the draft Recommended Best Practice that NRMLA is at work on.”
The committee, led by 1st Reverse Mortgage USA Vice President Dan Harder and Pete Engelken, president of Genworth Financial Home Equity Access, held its first call last week, toward that effort. Other committee members include HomeChex Founder Mark Browning, MetLife Bank Assistant Vice President Joe DeMarkey, Gregg Smith, President of One Reverse Mortgage, former Senior Lending Network CEO David Peskin, and Wells Fargo Home Mortgage Assistant VP Diane Coats.
Through bi-weekly meetings, the group will work with industry analysts to determine the direction of a best practices document. It will convene in a late-September meeting in Washington to discuss whether the draft needs to be modified based on the data collection, Bell said.
The financial assessment, which has been discussed by Department of Housing and Urban Development officials in recent months, is now being spearheaded by an industry effort toward best practices that lenders can use to help ensure borrowers do not end up in tax and insurance default. While NRMLA previously indicated to RMD that the assessment would move forward swiftly, the task force is not scheduled to convene with its findings until September 22.
Written by Elizabeth Ecker
