New HECM Rules For Surviving Spouses Fall Short

The Department of Housing and Urban Development recently published Mortgagee Letter 2015-03, which provides servicers of FHA-insured Home Equity Conversion Mortgages a way to proceed after a borrower dies and is survived by a non-borrower spouse. Under the Letter, lenders and servicers can assign to HUD those HECMs that are in default due to the death of the borrower, and with properties still occupied by non-borrowing spouses, provided that certain conditions are met. This much-needed guidance follows a period of uncertainty facing lenders and servicers. Although the new rules address many of the issues presented by non-borrowing spouses, one of the rules' principal shortcomings is that they do not sufficiently outline the rebalancing of principal that is often required to substitute these new borrowers.