What is a reverse mortgage? This is a question that is being asked by a lot of people. The answer is that this type of mortgage is for anyone that is over sixty two years of age that owns their home free and clear.

These are the two main factors that determine whether you are eligible for reverse mortgage or not. Basically you can get cash from the equity you have in your home. You can get a small loan or a larger sum of money depending on what you need to survive everyday easier.

This type of loan was put into place to help the elderly survive when their income becomes reduced drastically and most are unable to work.

There are two ways that the money can be paid to you: in one lump sum or as scheduled payments. There will not be a monthly payment that is required for getting money this way. The payments will begin only when one of three things happen which are below:

1. When the person who owns the home passes away and the house is sold on the market. Selling the house will ensure that the loan is paid off using the proceeds of the sale.

2. If you decide to sell the home before passing away then the same will hold true. The loan will be paid off using the proceeds from the sale of the house.

3. When the person who owns the home has to be put into a full time care facility the loan will be need to be paid in full. Again this can be achieved by selling the house. You also have the option with this to rent or lease the property instead and then the payments will be made to the holder of the loan.

Before deciding to get this type of mortgage loan you need to do your research on it and be sure you understand as much as you can about it so you can decide if this is your best solution to secure the money you need to survive. Also talk to a mortgage lender to help you make the smartest choice possible.

Now that you know the answer to the question what is a reverse mortgage; you will be better able to make an informed decision to help you in your time of need. If you are over the age of sixty two and own your home free and clear than taking advantage of this type of mortgage could mean the different between you surviving easily or struggling to survive.

The Federal Trade Commission has stepped up its investigations and prosecutions of mortgage relief scam artists. Since the start of 2013, the FTC has obtained settlements from over 20 individuals and companies involved with scamming distressed homeowners. In the most recent cases, two individuals and seven companies settled FTC charges that they victimized more than a thousand people through “mass joinder lawsuits” and “forensic loan audits.” They violated the Mortgage Assistance Relief Services (MARS) Rule, which was set up to curb deceptive and unfair practices related to such services.

The FTC contends that Sameer Lakhany, Brian Pacios, Precision Law Center, Inc., Precision Law Center LLC, National Legal Network, Inc., and Assurity Law Group, Inc. targeted consumers with a mass joinder scam. They promised homeowners that they could stop their foreclosures or obtain some other mortgage relief if they joined together to sue the lenders. The defendants represented themselves as a law firm called Precision Law Center, charging between $6,000 and $10,000 in up-front fees. But every suit was dismissed soon after it was filed; the victims saw none of the promised relief.

One of the scam artists, Lakhany, was also involved in a “forensic loan audit” scam, along with The Credit Shop, LLC, Titanium Realty, Inc., and Fidelity Legal Services LLC. These defendants called themselves nonprofit organizations, with domain names like “FreeFedLoanMod.org,” “HouseholdRelief.org,” and “MyHomeSupport.org;” but really they sold people an auditing service, which supposedly found lender violations in mortgage documents. The defendants charged $800 to nearly $1,600 for this service, which never led to a single favorable loan modification for the victims.

The FTC settlements require the defendants to surrender many assets and pay $4.75 million in restitution. All except Assurity Law Group, Inc. are banned from mortgage relief and debt relief services; Assurity is required to surrender $100,000 in funds and has been ordered to cease any deceptive practices. In February, the FTC settled with another predatory group, composed of Ryan Zimmerman, Consumer Advocates Group Experts, LLC, Paramount Asset Management Corporation, and Advocates for Consumer Affairs Expert, LLC. These entities also used the forensic loan audit scam, and charged people almost $2,000 or more for the audits-they failed to make good on their false claims. Besides receiving a $3.5 million judgment against them, the defendants are banned from marketing relief services or products, and from making any misleading claims about any other type of product or service.

In January 2013, eight other defendants settled with the FTC, for selling fake relief services to distressed Spanish-speaking homeowners over the phone. The defendants-David F. Preiner, Daniel Hungria, Freedom Companies Marketing, Inc., Freedom Companies Lending, Inc., Freedom Companies, Inc., Grupo Marketing Dominicana, Freedom Information Services, Inc., and Haiti Management, Inc-collected over $2 million from people over three years. They simply didn’t provide the services they said they could. Part of this settlement, in which the defendants received a $2.39 million judgment, bans them from marketing relief products or services, and from making misleading claims about anything they advertise.

Below is a list of important changes that are brought with the new mortgage law in Turkey:

New Mortgage Products
Before the mortgage law, it was only possible to lend home loans at fixed interest rates. The law introduced floating interest rates (or a combination of fixed and floating rates) as an additional mortgage type. In floating rate loans, the interest rate is determined from the sum of a fixed margin that is determined by the lender and the inflation rate as measured by the Consumer Price Index. This way banks do not have to face the interest rate risk on their own and may share the risk with the borrowers. In summer of 2007, some banks started to offer variable interest rate loans but so far there does not seem to be much interest in this new type of mortgages and more than 99.9% of the loans are still fixed-interest rate mortgages.

Tax Benefits
Before the law passed on March 2007, there were some plans about providing tax relief to borrowers, however, the only tax relief mortgage law provided was a minor 5 percent Banking Insurance Operating Tax (BSMV) exemption and abolishment of several other smaller operating fees. As an example, before the law passed a monthly mortgage interest rate of 1.30% would be actually 1.3965%. For a 10 year loan of 100,000 YTL, with BSMV exemption the new mortgage law reduced the monthly payment of 1,722 YTL to 1,650 YTL, about 4.2% reduction in the monthly payments.

Loan Length
Before the mortgage law, Turkish banks could offer only shot-term loans up to a few years. This had a very limiting effect on the real estate economy in Turkey. Because of short maturities and high interest rates, funding of houses was mainly done with savings (60+ percent) and relatives/friends (about 25 per cent). The home loans were only making less than 5 percent of the total housing funding.
With the new law in effect for about 6 months, this picture started to change dramatically. The introduction of the new Turkish mortgage law already made a few banks (e.g., HSBC, Sekerbank and Finansbank) give loans up to 30 years to finance. It is expected that the other lending institutions will offer similar mortgages in the near future as interest rates decrease further and demand for longer mortgages continue to increase.

Lending Institutions
Before the mortgage law, only deposit, investment and participation banks could issue home loans. Under the new law, however, consumer funding companies are able to issue home loans too. A few mortgage companies are in the process of starting their operations; it is likely that the growing competition will lower the interest rates, which are very high when compared to those of developed countries. Let’s also note that as these new lenders are allowed to invest in capital markets to create funds for the home loans, it is expected that the financial markets will develop and will have indirect positive effects on the rest of the economy.

Early Payment Fee
Before the law, there was no penalty for early payment of the loan, however, due to the pressures from the banks, the new mortgage law included a penalty up to 2% if borrower pays before due date. This early payment fee is only valid for the fixed-interest rate loans. There is no penalty for the adjustable interest rate loans; they can close their accounts any time without incurring a charge.

Securitization of Loans
With the new law, banks are now able to bundle the loans into securities creating covered bonds and mortgage backed securities. Covered mortgage bonds and mortgage backed securities are debt securities backed by cash flows from mortgages and let the banks eliminate or share the mortgage risk with the rest of the world in a secondary market. Let’s also note that Turkey’s sub-investment grade sovereign rating may not be a big problem in the making good deals in the secondary market as covered bonds typically get higher ratings than the sovereign ratings of the countries. Therefore we expect that the secondary mortgage market is likely to stimulate the growth in the mortgage market substantially and decrease the interest rates when it starts to operate in early 2008.