State Reverse Mortgage Legislative Updates • New York Gov. Kathy Hochul signed legislation into law that amends the reverse mortgage cooperative housing bill she signed in December by requiring lenders to obtain letters of credit for every loan they make on a co-op unit. The original law exempted lenders from having to meet this requirement, but Senate Bill 7724 removed the exemption. NRMLA sent letters to the governor’s office and to the lawmakers who were behind the amendment warning that the current letter of credit requirements “will prevent any reverse cooperative apartment unit loans from being made in New York, because no lender will be able to meet the authorized lender requirements without those exemptions.” NRMLA will continue working with New York lawmakers to reinstate the exemption. Until the exemption is reinstated, lenders that offer private-label reverse mortgages in New York informed NRMLA that they will not be offering their products on cooperative housing. • Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker signed a supplemental spending bill on February 12 that reinstates video and telephone counseling for reverse mortgage borrowers until July 15. In-person counseling resumed in Massachusetts on December 15, which complicated borrowers’ ability to be counseled given the limited number of counselors who are willing to meet in-person, especially after the onset of the omicron variant. NRMLA and our members in Massachusetts will continue advocating for legislation that allows for video/telephone counseling on a permanent basis. • NRMLA sent a letter to 18 lawmakers in Pennsylvania who have co-sponsored legislation (House Bill 2316) that would implement new counseling requirements. While NRMLA is generally supportive of the bill, the association identified several issues that need to be fixed. Among them, the bill would require prospective borrowers to be counseled by a counseling agency, approved by the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), domiciled in Pennsylvania. At the moment, there are only five HUD-approved Home Equity Conversion Mortgage (HECM) counseling agencies in the commonwealth. NRMLA commented that under the HECM program, lenders must provide prospective senior applicants with a list of HUD-approved counseling agencies, including national intermediaries, that provide counseling services over the phone and can be located anywhere in the country. NRMLA added that, in some cases, the nearest counseling agency could be located in an adjoining state. For these reasons, NRMLA has asked the lawmakers to remove the requirement that the counseling agency must be based in Pennsylvania. NRMLA Adds Jobs Board to Member Site Looking to fill a position in your company? Use NRMLA’s Jobs Board to post the position for free. Both members and nonmembers can view the Jobs Board on www.nrmlaonline.org, but new positions can only be posted by members. To post something, all you need to do is select “Post a Job” and log in with your username and password. If you have any questions about using this new service, please contact Membership Services Coordinator Maital Kaminer at mkaminer@dworbell.com. The press is talking about ... Interview Discusses How Reverse Mortgages Grow as Retirement Tool In an interview with ThinkAdvisor.com, Phil Walker, vice president of strategic partnerships at Finance of America Reverse, shared his views on the growing importance of reverse mortgages as a retirement planning tool and the results of a white paper that he co-authored with Barry What’s News continued on page 10 REVERSE MORTGAGE / MAY- JUNE 2022 9
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