The financial news that actually matters
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A homeowner can do everything right — pay every premium on time, never file a claim — and still open the mailbox to a notice that the policy will not be renewed, all because of a photograph taken from the sky. Insurers are increasingly inspecting houses from above using aerial, satellite, and drone imagery, and…
A reverse mortgage removes the ordinary monthly principal-and-interest payment, but it does not remove the homeowner’s carrying costs. Property taxes and required homeowners insurance remain borrower obligations. When those charges go unpaid, the loan can move toward due-and-payable status, putting the home behind a retirement cash shortage that may have started with a single missed…
When a homeowner with a reverse mortgage dies, the loan does not simply vanish, and it does not automatically cost the family the house. Federal rules give heirs a defined set of choices and a built-in ceiling on what they can be asked to pay. The most important of those protections is a rule that…
Millions of Americans bought homes before the 2008 crash with two loans stacked on the same property, and many of those second mortgages went silent for so long that the borrowers assumed they had simply disappeared. They did not. A debt buyer can revive a decade-old second mortgage and come after a house that is…
A Virginia widow has taken the federal government and several mortgage companies to court, arguing she was pushed out of her home over a reverse mortgage that was only ever in her late husband’s name. Her federal lawsuit contends that surviving spouses are entitled to remain in the home under the government’s own rules, even…
A newly filed class-action complaint accuses several of the country’s largest reverse-mortgage servicers of charging older homeowners fees that federal rules and the loan contract prohibit. The suit, which the AARP Foundation has joined, alleges the companies routinely added charges that quietly stripped equity from borrowers already living on fixed incomes. None of the allegations…
A reverse mortgage closing does not always end the homeowner’s decision period. Most borrowers have three business days to cancel without a penalty, creating a short but important opportunity to reconsider the costs and long-term effect on home equity. The right depends on written notice and a tight clock. Families reviewing the transaction should focus…
A home-equity line of credit can be signed during a moment of urgency and reconsidered after the numbers settle in. Federal law gives borrowers a brief cancellation window when the line is secured by the principal home. The window is measured in business days, not ordinary calendar days, and the notice must be delivered in…
A single lawsuit can threaten savings built over a lifetime, and standard home and auto policies cap how much they will pay to defend against one. For a relatively modest premium, an umbrella policy extends that protection well beyond the underlying limits, shielding a retiree’s assets from a large liability claim. It is one of…
A growing number of homeowners are learning that their insurance coverage can be canceled because of a photograph taken from the sky, not an inspector at the door. Insurers increasingly rely on aerial images from drones, planes, and satellites to decide whether to keep covering a home, and some of those decisions rest on a…