Bipartisan letter from senators cites concerns of new language endangering NBS protections
Despite the increasingly toxic and adversarial political climate in Washington, D.C., two United States Senators have joined together to push the Department of Housing and Urban Development for clarification of language in the Trump administration’s new budget which could strip away key protections for reverse mortgage non-borrowing spouses. Bad language can lead to bad policy.
U.S. Senators Marco Rubio (Republican of Florida), and Catherine Cortez Masto (a Nevada Democrat) sent a joint letter to HUD Secretary Ben Carson and OMB (Office of Management and Budget) director asking the agencies to clarify the proposed language found in the federal government’s budget request. To date, no response has been received. New York Times columnist Matthew Goldstein rightly point the significance of the Home Equity Conversion Mortgage program writing, “reverse mortgages are viewed as crucial pieces in helping an aging population plan for retirement, and new lenders are coming into the market. The language that concerns the senators and advocates for the elderly is a proposed change in the National Housing Act that says, in regard to reverse mortgages, that a mortgagor “shall not include the successors and assigns of the original borrower under a mortgage.” Simply put, such language could leave spouses not named on the loan at risk of displacement or foreclosure.