2169 East Rutland Lane, Martinsville, IN 46151
Corporate NMLS #1025894
April 5th, 2022
With a twelve year age difference between you and your wife, you’ve given some serious thought to living options. First choice, you both agree, is spending the rest of your lives in your Indiana home. As you enter your eighties, though, you worry whether you’ll remain healthy enough to avoid being forced to move into an assisted living facility or nursing home. Even should such a move become inevitable, you want your wife to be able to spend the rest of her years in your home.
Your documents have been kept up to date (healthcare power of attorney forms, long term care policies, etc.), so the discussion now comes down to financial choices. Your combined retirement pension benefits, along with some investment income, have so far proven sufficient to cover your costs of living. Your wife is a very capable money manager, but the costs of facility care might be onerous when added to the upkeep of the home. You both would like having a contingency plan in place.
You might consider freeing up the equity you’ve built up in your primary residence by applying for a reverse mortgage line of credit. You apparently have no immediate need to make withdrawals, but you would have the reassurance of being able to easily tap that guaranteed, growing line of credit should you need to move – either temporarily or permanently – into a care facility. Meanwhile, your wife would be guaranteed the right to remain in the home for the rest of her life.
A reverse mortgage would be a way to use home equity to hold down the fort.