Lifeless policy decisions are policies made up of regulations, laws and administrative rulings that look good on paper but fail in the world of the living.

This industry is working in an unrecognized parallel lifeless world. This new zeitgeist has become the world of the file.  Papers that make up the file are given more weight than the subjects of the file. Caring and emotion are sucked down the drain.

Humor ( OK some may not agree)is used to make a poignant point. Please keep in mind that this  is not a laughing matter. Read on. ( Below is a conversation between a reverse mortgage originator and a very exasperated underwriter who feels the pain, but is powerless to do anything about it.)

My senior borrower is out of money.

Don’t you get it man, this is not important.
The 39 rules that must be followed after a borrower has been counseled were not followed. And the borrower was not properly notified that the counseling session had ended.

But I’m the originator. You can’t just refuse to provide the loan.

Maybe you did not get memo 134,490. “A loan originator can no longer speak with the borrower. Only a BMC (Borrower Management Company) hired by the HUD counselor can speak with the borrower.

 Wait a minute; did you not hear what I said? The borrower has no more money.

While we are on the subject, I noticed that your 10% fee tolerance costs on the Good Faith Estimate were off by a half a cent.  And the shade of the paper that the GFE was printed on was not government approved.

My borrower has no more M O N E Y!

That brings me to my next salient point. Did you not notice that your borrower has a mailing address that is different than the property address?

So What!

HUD Mortgagee Letter  2,567,890,876-2010 states very clearly that a  mailing address must be the same as the property address except when the numbers making up the zip codes are a sub set of themselves.

Look my client has no food, no electricity and can’t pay the mortgage. I’m begging you give my client a break.

Loan officer groveling  is now a RESPA Section 8 violation. Sorry can’t help.

What do I tell my borrower?

Tell him that the reverse mortgage is now part of HUD’s Risk Management policy-the fewer that are done the better.