You keep full ownership of your home with a reverse mortgage. You can leave whenever you want, there are no prepayment penalties, and the loan is only due when you permanently move out. You're responsible for maintenance and property charges.
Some people feel like when they take a reverse mortgage that they're just entirely trapped. Maybe there's an anxiety of entering a reverse mortgage agreement because there's this type of misnomer that the bank is out to get your house. You're tied up and you can't do anything. In reality, you still own the home. You can do anything you want with your home, just as you would with any other type of mortgage. You are still the homeowner. That's the thing about our industry is that we have to make sure that people are taking reverse mortgages that can still responsibly maintain their homeownership status and keeping the property charges going maintaining their home at a reasonable level. The reverse mortgage is due when you leave your home, so we want to make sure it's for owner occupancy, that you're living there as your primary residence. And at the end of the day, it's just your house, so there's no entrapment by the lender. A reverse mortgage is a loan like any other in that respect. There's no prepayment penalty. You can take one out, you can get out of it just as easy.
