Our Reverse Mortgage Blog

On June 12th, Gov. Gregoire signed a new Bill which greatly reduced the ability of several fine lenders offering reverse mortgages to work within the State of Washington. In an effort to protect citizens from mortgage originators previously exempt from licensing under the Mortgage Brokers Practices Act since they were Mortgage Bankers, not Brokers, all those exempt had to be licensed under the Consumer Loan Act. Good intentions, but in doing so, the newly licensed companies found that State Law regarding the Act prohibited them from doing certain types of mortgages. Even though the State was made aware of this mistake, (acknowledged it as an error), they desided to take no action until sometime next year when they come back in session.

What seniors are now left with, is a couple of lenders that have banking operations in the State and a few brokers that may or may not have the best interest of seniors in mind. Those brokers offering reverse mortgages are limited further since several of the reverse mortgage lenders have decided not to get licensing under that act. A further check that I did resulted in finding that certain lenders offering the reverse mortgage product were charging the maximum allowable fees in regards to the origination fee and the monthly fee.

I would encourage all seniors to write to their various representatives, senators, and the governor and demand that the licensing be restructured in a way that allows for the lenders that were previously offering reverse mortgages to once again be allowed to offer them. It will benefit seniors in having greater loan choices.