Chicago, Illinois
Natalie, 52, had experienced a string of
stressful years, but 2008 was particularly bad. It
marked the fifth year since she had been laid off
from her job as a project manager with a communications firm. Even so, she had been unable to
seek new employment because of her parents’ long
term, serious health conditions. Then her father
and mother experienced severe
medical problems for several months, on top of the diabetes,
high blood pressure, kidney problems, and dementia from which
they had both suffered for years. Her mother’s pneumonia was
treated with a medication that caused a chronic loss of bowel
control. The foot pain that her father first suffered in June was
not properly diagnosed until November, and as such he had to
have one of his big toes amputated. The other big toe was
amputated early in 2009.
To make matters worse, the family owed $355,000 on the
mortgage on their home in Chicago’s Gold Coast neighborhood, a
historic building with a coach house that had been in the family
for more than seventy years. Her father's pension from his former
career as a truck driver and he and his wife’s Social Security income
could not cover the mortgage payments, and after months of
unproductive negotiations, the lender was ready to foreclose by
early 2009. On top of serving as her parents’ primary daily
caretaker and taking them to numerous medical appointments, Natalie now needed to find a way to save her family’s home.
The family’s former lender “just didn’t want to cooperate,” Natalie recalls. “They seemed to want to take the property.” As
her lender would not offer useful assistance, she sought financing
elsewhere, but that was also a brick wall. “Some people said that
we were qualified, but it turned out we weren’t…others wouldn’t
give us enough money.” It was a difficult and uncertain time for Natalie, who worried about what would happen to her
parents if they had to move to a nursing home. “If they had to
leave the home they had lived in for years, where they raised
their children…it might have killed them.”
Fortunately, a deacon at Natalie's church recommended
personable, knowledgeable, and determined Jeanine Weintz of
Seniors Reverse Mortgage. Ms. Weintz was “absolutely awesome,”
raves Natalie. “She went over and beyond anyone who does
what she does.” Ms. Weintz told Natalie that although she
herself was too young to qualify for a reverse mortgage, her
parents did. Because of her parents’ dementia, however, they
would not be able to make the choice themselves. Natalie
went through the legal process necessary for her to gain power
of attorney status, so that she could make decisions about her
parents’ financial affairs.
Ms. Weintz wrote a letter to support Natalie when she had
to go to court to stop the foreclosure on her family’s home,
informing the court that they were waiting for the HECM loan
limit to increase to $625,500 to take effect in the wake of the
American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 before they
went forward with the reverse mortgage. Luckily, the foreclosure
procedures were stayed and Natalie and her parents were able
to procure their reverse mortgage. The property was assessed at
$700,000 and Natalie received enough to pay off the hefty
forward mortgage and now has the residual in a line of credit for
her parents. She is using this to pay for home repairs, including
maintenance on the roof, and also to cover the charges on her
parents’ medical bills that are not covered by insurance.
These days, life is still challenging, but Natalie breathes
easier knowing that her parents can stay in her family’s home,
a home that her grandmother originally lived in. She also feels
secure knowing that she is taking good care of her parents with a
personal touch, instead of wondering about their comfort as she
would if they had needed to move to a nursing facility. When
she helps her parents into bed at night, her father often says, “I
can remember when I used to tuck you into bed, now you tuck
me in.” It’s all in a day’s work for a loving daughter who saved
not only her family’s home, but her parents’ golden years.