The Ventura Star reported on two different views of reverse mortgages over the weekend.
That article describes the view of Joan Locke, 72, who considers her reverse mortgage a blessing then provides the opinion of Sandy Jolley, 63, who says her mother’s reverse mortgage a curse.
Lock, who retired at 62 to take care of her husband who suffered from a tumor pressing on his brain, the couple was having a hard time making it on about $2,000 a month. After learning about reverse mortgages through a seminar on financial planning, she decided to take out the loan.
After paying off her mortgages, she feels she will not be a burden on her two sons.
“I can still live in my house as long as I am able to maintain it,” she said. “There will be nothing left over for my sons … It’s kind of like living on my children’s inheritance. It was something none of us foresaw.”
The view of Jolley, a family member of Pat Hickerson couldn’t be more different. Her mother took out a reverse mortgage with Financial Freedom and believes the company ignored signs that her father, Richard Hickerson, was mentally impaired and on heavy medication when he signed the reverse loan application in 2005.
Jolley claims her parents didn’t need the money and that Financial Freedom should have known that. Now, her mother’s Alzheimer’s disease has progressed to the point that she needs to be in a care facility, but because of the terms of the reverse mortgage, Hickerson must stay in the home or lose it.
Selling the house isn’t an option because the house won’t command what it did when they got the loan, and the family can’t afford to pay the lien on the house, which is $470,000, Jolley said.
Interesting read – even though you might not agree with all the opinions in the article.
