Cousin fears his Mom's sneaky husband has taken out a reverse mortgage on their home behind her back. How to find out for certain?
He's a second husband, longer term, but acts bipolar with money. History, about 10 years ago, before she realized it and took over the finances he'd done up a massive amount of credit card debt behind her back on many cards. They had to refinance the house, tap out most of the equity to pay them all off. It pretty much wiped them out to zero in middle age.
Since she's built back up equity, got things going on an even keel, albeit really behind for their ages. Now he's starting to show up with things he doesn't have money for, and so is his chronically unemployed son. Red flag considering the past. Only thing he can think of is he could have gotten a reverse mortgage, be spending that. Only advise I had was to pull credit reports, but I wonder if reverse mortgages show up on a credit report. Anyone know? The mortgage company wouldn't know, would they, since the one holding the reverse would be a different company? Scary, don't want her to wind up old and homeless while she thinks she's gaining. She's broke her butt, sacrificed, been responsible, ...he's been a slide and glide, sat on his duff, bought and ate and drank everything that popped into his greedy head. Never seen anybody blow so much $ on nothing. Anyplace else could he be getting money that doesn't need repaid and raise the flag? I'm betting it's the house too, just don't know anything to tell him about how to find out. Thanks!
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So, yes, the exisiting lender would know if a reverse mortgage has taken place because it would have been paid off, so you could contact the lender.
You can also contact the register of deeds, or other county department responsible for recording real property transactions. Years ago in our county recordings were about 6 weeks behind so recordings would show up on the records for that amount of time. But with electronic conversion, recordings may show up quicker, depending on the county and the volume of recordings.
You can also contact the local city/township treasurer, as that office would get notice (probably from the register of deeds) of mortgages if the mortgagee (lender) requires that taxes be paid by it as a term in the mortgage. I don't know how frequently or quickly the county advises the local community though.
Lastly, any lender would presumably require all feeholders of the property to sign any mortgage. If the deed to the property is joint (husband and wife), your mother would have to sign as well.
Credit reports will also reflect mortgage indebtedness.
You might want to consider asking your mother if you can put a credit (or security) freeze on her credit report. That creates restricted access to credit. I would think even an RM lender would pull a credit report before granting a mortgage. Again, I'm assuming that title to the home is held jointly.
I was wondering the same thing as Babalou, but more to the point of why your aunt keeps this guy around.
The other possibility of getting money besides Babalou's credit card suggestion is that he's tapped into funds available from a loan shark, which would be far worse than getting an RM.
Maybe it's time for a PI to see what this guy is up to.
I did take the advice of mincemeat, ran a county parcel check, got a parcel number, ran a check with the deed dept off of that. It looks like there is nothing but the modest 1st mortgage against the property right now. Hope that's true. Little Couz is a sharp boy, but his Father has passed, I am kinda big sis to all of them, so when he brought it up on the phone today it worried me that he could be on to something.
Why she keeps him around, good question, but, most of the time he's a good guy, personable, right in there to help anyone, he just really seems to suck at handling money. I've had the PI thought before, regarding this issue though.
I'm really glad though that there's no recorded RM. Next time you call, you can ask how current the recordings are so you know if there's any lag time.