Reverse mortgage

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A reverse mortgage or reverse mortgage (ger .: Reverse Mortgage ) or reverse mortgage is a type of real estate retirement. This financial service was introduced in the USA and is now also offered in various European countries, first in the Netherlands and later in Germany and Austria.

In its German translation, the name is misleading in that there is no close, factual connection between a mortgage (a real estate lien ) and the reverse mortgage financial service product . It is therefore also called real estate rent.

Content of the contract

The reverse mortgage is a loan agreement that real estate serves as security. The loan can be paid out in a lump sum or in monthly installments . The ownership position remains unaffected. A securitized land charge serves as security, interest and repayment are deferred. In contrast to the normal construction loan, the debt load builds up from year to year, which is why the name reverse mortgage has developed.

The loan repayment is only due after the death of the borrower or when moving out of the house connected to the property - for example when moving to a nursing home. The heirs can repay the loan from their own assets, with the help of a new loan or by selling the property. Or the bank can sell the property and pay out any surplus to the heirs. The borrowers are protected against eviction as long as one of the spouses of the borrower side is still alive, has their first residence in a house on the property and as long as the borrower bears the local burdens (taxes, etc.).

motivation

Reverse mortgages are primarily intended to help real estate owners who, apart from their real estate, have no significant financial assets and possibly only a low income or an inadequate pension : A monthly payment from the loan agreement with the option that the borrower stays in the house is similar to the construct of lifelong right of residence (and at the same time a sale for an annuity ). With falling pensions and more and more childless people , the providers expect a high potential. In the USA, the number of users of reverse mortgages increased sixfold between 2001 and 2006 and continues to rise steeply: in 2006 alone by around 30,000 to 70,000 among the state-secured, which makes up 90 percent.

The problem for property owners, however, is that only valuable, unencumbered properties in good locations achieve a noteworthy annuity. Anyone who owns an unattractive, worn-out property in the country or is still paying off a mortgage will hardly benefit. The considerable costs of the financial service provider must also be added. The owner can only ever expect a much lower payment than would result from the purely arithmetical market value and purely statistical life expectancy.

Since with the conclusion of such a real estate rent, the market value is practically given away in order to live off it, after the death of the borrower the inheritance can be considerably reduced or even dropped.

literature

  • Gunnar Lang: Reverse Mortgage as an Old Age Security Instrument in Germany. Nomos, Baden-Baden 2008, ISBN 978-3-8329-3290-9 ( ZEW-Wirtschaftsanalysen 86).
  • Udo Reifner: Innovative financial services. Baden-Baden 2007, ISBN 978-3-8329-2752-3 .
  • Daniel Schnabl: The American reverse mortgage ("reverse mortgage"). A pension model for Germany? In: New journal for tenancy and housing law. Issue 19, 2007, ISSN  1434-677X , pp. 714-719.
  • Mike Schneider: Calculation of lifetime and reverse mortgages. A critical analysis using the example of the US Home Equity Conversion Mortgage (HECM) model. Gabler, Wiesbaden 2009, ISBN 978-3-8349-1333-3 ( series of publications by the European Center for Financial Services ).