The End of the Reverse Mortgage Process, with Hank Rhoads

0:01 Really excited to have for the second time as a guest on the Reverse Mortgage Podcast, Hank Rhoads. And the reason why is I kind of blew it the first time in that we set up the interview. We were going to talk about the end of reverse mortgage process, which is critical, which is why I launched this podcast. And hang such a nice guy and fun guy. We started talking and like 30 minutes went by about everything else but that topic that I missed the opportunity. So today I'm committed to learning as much as we can, helping you who are watching learn about the end of the verse mortgage process with an expert in the field, Hank Rhoads. Hank, thanks so much for coming back on the podcast.

0:38 Yeah, great to be here, Bill. So this is why I got into this and you know, I don't want to bismerch industry. I want to raise the standards. I want to improve our preparation, improve our communication with our customers. But there's no doubt everybody agrees there should be 10 times worse mortgages than there are. But for I think two things. One is the stink of the reputation of the product as it was initially launched in the mid 80s which is unfair. But I think the fair one is the poor service experience of customers or deedent errors of customers when the reverse mortgage ends. And I know that's an area that you looked into. So let me just start. I get these leads as a probate agent because there's a reverse mortgage and they died without a will and they're difficult to work through. How did you come to become an expert in the process of the end of the reverse mortgage? There was an enormous need you know I've done this for 20 years and almost right away I noticed there is a significant problem at the end of these reverse mortgages and you know I felt compelled or even obligated to help make a difference heirs to not be subjected to their experience at the end of these reverse mortgages. Now, some of it is self-induced. You know, the homeowners need to prepare themselves, and you're an expert on all these things. I love being on your podcast. We could talk for hours and hours. We've never met, but and I've been interviewed many times. Being interviewed by you is like perfect. You know, the questions to ask. You take me right where things need to be. So, it's great to be back.

2:25 But the and so these things you're an expert on. If you're a homeowner, older homeowner, you have a reverse mortgage and you don't have a trust, what's going to happen? You're going to probate. You're going to probate. And you know, the reverse mortgage loan servicesers, they're obligated to the lender and actually to FHA to get that reverse mortgage resolved timely. You can't do anything timely if you don't have people ready to act and if you're heading to probate. There are homeowners. So, the worst story I could tell, and this is what really lit a fire under me, a woman in California, heirs and kids are in Oregon and she dies without a trust and has reverse mortgage. The heirs mistakenly assume, oh, she has reverse mortgage, there's no equity. They don't do anything and the house sits there for months and the loan serer is what's going on? How come we're not hearing from anybody? They're mailing. They're sending people to the house. They're posting notes on door. Nothing's happening. There was equity in this house when she died. There was probably $200,000 in equity. By the time probate was resolved, by the by the time the heirs engaged because it was worth it for them because of the housing wealth that they were potentially receiving, that $200,000 in wealth was consumed down to where they got less than $100,000 because of ongoing reverse mortgage loan balance growing.

4:00 Interest doesn't stop acrewing. Oh my gosh, how much does probate cost? It costs a lot. Do you think taxes need to keep getting paid? Yes. Property taxes still get paid. Insurance? Yes. Utilities probably. And so the amount of housing wealth that was lost was approaching $100,000 because of all of those things. Now, the opposite extreme example, one of my dear clients that I had prepared for this, we had their they were in a trust. They had somebody ready to act. The heirs were ready to sell the house as quick as possible. Within 40 days, we had the house sold and they had the proceeds from the home sale and they went on their way. Well, that's because they were informed and prepared ahead of time and when the time came and so it's a vast difference. I don't want people giving up incredible six figures of housing wealth because they're illprepared for the end of the reverse mortgage. But it happens all the time.

4:59 All the time. This has become increasingly part of my business is the parents took the first mortgage out have plenty nowadays have plenty of equity at least in California because loan to values are such that there's going to be equity and it's going to grow and you take a difficult transition mom and dad die or what whatever that story is and then you throw into it now you need to go to probate court it's like scrambling a mess it's just getting worse and you're going backwards. So let's talk a little bit about at the point of opportunity which is the obviously you know as an originator you deal with a customer they want a reverse mortgage you see the how they hold title because you get a title report it says Bob and Mary Jones not the Bob and Mary Jones trust and the problem is you can ask them and maybe should in some regards getting a estate plan done can take longer than the mortgage and so now you have like two sets of paper going on for customers who are already somewhat busy with their lives and then busier with your mortgage then if you want to add on a third level the state plan. So that's why a lot lessers tell me they don't want to get involved at that point. And so I've been a campaign to say to originators this is what you do before the loan is started. You can check in with them every 90 days about why they need an estate plan so that when they want the mortgage it's all ready to go. Not when they want the mortgage. It makes it more complicated.

6:26 So, I know that originators struggle with, well, how do I market to my past client database? To me, this seems like such an obvious opportunity to educate your clients on something they're going to need if they own a house.

6:38 Yeah. So, there you go again, Bill, taking me right where we need to go, right? What I want to talk about. 10 years ago, I just wanted to get the reverse mortgage done, right? And now you know 20 years into my career and when I see how these end badly if particularly if you don't have a trust I have a whole different attitude. I remember one of my peers she was all worried about all this. She's doing all this work. I go why doesn't she just focus on her job get the reverse mortgage done right? She's got all this fluff she's bringing in. Well she was right. I was wrong. And I've realized that and have done a lot about the last few years. So, while we're in there, you know, while we're in there doing all this financial stuff because we do a level of, you know, it's financial planning to, you know, not at a professional level. I have my certificate in financial planning. I'm very interested in this. I want to know about their entire picture and I want to help them and I'll point them in the right direction if they need it. But while we're in there doing all this, the estate plan needs to be considered. And, here's what I do now. My team and I if I'm working with you and you don't have a trust and we're doing your reverse mortgage, I am going to pay for you to get your trust.

7:52 Wow. And we're not we're not going to wait until the reverse mortgage is done. We're already in there collecting all this stuff, doing all of this work. I have a I have a eightpage trust questionnaire from my attorney, my estate planning attorney. I leave that with them and depending on the amount of help. I have somebody help them with the interview process, getting through those questions. They're not that hard. They should be able to do it themselves. But if they want help, I've got it, my notary happens to help them get those questions answered. I got a couple different notaries depending on what region. We get that all done. And, you know, we're notorizing documents at the end. Anyways, so what we're often notorizing is a deed that's transferring title from the name of Bill Gross to the Gross Family Trust,

8:35 Right? And the homeowners don't pay for this. We pay my attorney we issue a lender credit for the amount of his charge and it gets paid out of the closing. And what oh my gosh, what a great solution. And you know, it's more than just a trust. He does the full estate plan. These other things are important too. Medical directive, health directive, power of attorneys. What do you want done with your personal belongings? What do you want done with your body? And so

9:00 I have a separate podcast on estate planning and we cover each of those in a whole episode. So, yeah, there's a whole world of each of those silos, but why not just get it done? And I always tell people even a average plan is better than no plan 99% of the time. N better something that has some medical directives than that with some you know financial plan rather than I'm sorry to interrupt but I'm just so on this topic it's just so it's so important

9:29 Well and then and then oftentimes and I'm not telling you anything you don't already know it's your listeners that need to know this stuff and the other problem oh you have a trust congratulations good job but you know what is true half the time

9:44 That trust is dated Right. I have a family not too far from where I live. A mile from where I live. Wow. They've been married 75 years. Do you know how old you have to be to marry be married 75 years? They're 95. They've been married 75 years.

9:59 The bad news, you live that long. You might outlive your kids. And they did. And they're their successor trustees, their power of attorneys were their kids who've been dead for eight or nine years. Do you think they updated their trust?

10:12 No. No. So half the people that have a trust, good job. But guess what? Your trust isn't updated. You need to update. You need to take a look at your trust whenever something big happens or just have a strategy to do it every couple of years. So the other thing we did for this family as a part of doing the reverse mortgage, I'm like, "So tell me about your trust." I'm like, "Oh yeah, our kids are dead." Like, "Okay, yeah, we got to get to work on that." So same thing, we will pay my attorney to do what would be called a trust amendment or a complete and total restatement of the trust. So now they have different family members or different adviserss that are ready to act as successor trustee power of attorney and so now they're back to having an airtight trust. So just merely having a trust is not enough because that trust living trust living breathing document it needs to be updated. Another woman had her 95, she's in California. Her 95 year old brother who was an expert at financial stuff was her successor trustee. He's in Florida. He's 95. Was that the right successor trustee?

11:13 It was like 40 years ago. Yes. [laughter] Well, you know, look, I really admire what you do. I think everybody watching this should consider the same program. Yes, I'm sure that you can use this for business to get referrals from attorneys. But what's obvious to me is the point is not that. The point is to have a customer not just get a loan from you, but to improve their life, their safety, security, wealth profile as a result of working with you. And the details include the estate plan, but it's the process of what's the focus. And I think when a customer if and when customers understand you're not just booking a loan to get a commission, but you're helping really manage and create a foundation a solid financial wealth. It's so different. And so I commend you for doing that. I've offered the same that my challenge is I'm a listing agent. I rarely work with buyers. If I do, they're usually investors. So, but I do promote to my team the same concept. If I'm going to sell you a house for a million dollars in California and get paid $25,000 and you don't have a family plan set up, an estate plan of any sort, get something, work with an attorney, pay for it rather than buying them some stupid Jacubi board or pizza, change their lives, and you know, it all works out. Like, you're going to get that money back 10 times. That's just how life works. You can't help it. When you do good for people, you can't help getting it back.

12:36 One other benefit just while I'm on the topic because I'm on the soap box all the time is by the way you're doing this if you get the estate plan set up and then originate the loan in the estate plan you now have an insured transaction of that transfer.

12:51 I deal a time with people in good nature do it afterwards. The problem is afterwards the title company wants certain people to sign off on that deed and or any objector to that trust I.e. The heir who got less has a little more ammunition to fight it. And if it's title insurance is on it, then there's not now the title insurance company's going to back that up. And so it's so important if you can get it done through an insured title. Yes, you can deed it out of a trust and do the loan to put it back in. Again, that creates an uninsured title issue. And I see these all the time. So

13:24 What is DIY? What does that stand for? Do it yourself. Yes. So, I could tell you 10 stories in the last 12 months about some do-it-yourself situations. Yeah,

13:38 High risk, right? Don't mess around trying to do this yourself. Last week, I had a, client on their deathbed. They have since died. And they knew, it was my client, and the family knew, go to Hank when the time comes. They come to me and she brings me two trusts. You know, and I knew dad had a trust. Here's a trust. He did five years ago. And here's a trust he did two years ago. He did it himself. The new trust didn't mention the old trust. And we have these competing trusts with different slightly different beneficiaries, different successor trustee. And I'd send this to my attorneys all. Yeah, you got a mess. And so, real quickly, very quickly, we met his wishes. And but these two trusts were going to be in conflict and no one was going to know what to do or what to act on and it was going to create potential challenges for heirs. So we created the new trusts that was what he wanted with the second trust. So a third trust that disowned the first two trusts and that ruled the day the new trust he was he's not going to have a problem the family's not going to have a problem now selling their house but that do-it-yourself is a problem. There's a woman in my office that I work with she's like family to me. I've worked with her for almost 20 years. The whole time I've been doing reverse mortgages and you know we're confident what we're doing. We think we know what we're doing and she was smart. She got her reverse mortgage. She got her trust at the same time about 10 years ago. But she missed a step. She forgot to record the deed transferring it from her name into her trust. And that was something she thought she'd take care of on her own. Take it to the county recorder. She missed that step. I see that. I see that 10 times a year where people have a trust, they think they're in their trust, but they're not.

15:25 If anybody's listening and you think you're in your trust, make sure you're in your trust. Ask Bill, ask me if you can figure out, ask your Realtor®. Somebody needs to check to make sure you are in fact titled in your trust because there are I'll bet there are hundreds of thousands of California homeowners who are assuming they're in their trust and they're not because they never recorded the document. The county recorder's office to make sure they're in their trust. You've seen that, right?

15:49 The classic the classic is you're in the living room and you say to the customer, "Well, I noticed that your whole title is Bob and Mary." And they go, "Oh, no, we have a trust." And you look at your documents thinking, "Well, maybe I missed it. Maybe I'm, you know, lazy, working too fast." Really? We have Oh, yeah. They run out. They get this binder. It's beautiful. It's huge.

16:09 They paid a lot of money for that binder, right? And they open it up and the top page is a letter to them, a paperclip to a deed that says to get this deed notorized, take it to the county and record it until then it doesn't have any effect. It's like

16:24 They told you it to do this. So, it's one of those things where it happens all the time. And there is in California uniquely a process if it's clearly your intention to have put in the trust to consider the court will do that. It's called a Heggstad petition. And people say, "Well, it's only HEGstep petition." Oh, yeah. You can't get a hearing date for six months. Probate you can get in 30 days. Oh, and by the way, most attorneys charge as much for the HEGstead as they do for the whole probate process because it is somewhat specialized. I'm not saying they should or that's a fair price. I'm just saying that's what people pay to get that fixed. And then if there's anybody who has an objection, they raise their hands. Excuse me, I don't agree with this. So that was the whole point of the trust was to void that. So yeah, that's a cl Any Realtor®'s been in the business a while has had that binder experience. You just want to go, [laughter] "Wow, what'd you pay for the binder at Office Depot? It's like 20 bucks."

17:19 We So, that's another thing. We don't mess around with that. There's too much risk in that. And my attorney has the ability to record somehow.

17:28 Phenomen Why don't they all do that? Why don't they all do that? Yeah. So does my title company. And could you imagine doing a more I'm just stop for a second here for those who are listening. What he's saying is, and my estate planning weekly podcast, I interview attorneys all the time and ask them this. And the good ones will always say, "Yes, we'll finish the plan. We have the document. We'll get them to notoriize it in my office or whatever they have to do, and they'll get a recorded. They send to the county or in many cases now it's electronic." And they make sure it's recorded. They put a recorded copy in the deed. They know that it's done. The job's not done until it's done. So, Hank, would you ever do a mortgage, Hank, where you filled out the deed of trust and you hand a client say, "Go ahead and notoriize this and dig up to the county and you get your mortgage."

18:12 Oh my gosh. No kidding. I better not. No, they don't do that. Why did How do they get away with that? Yeah, I don't understand it either. That's always been a mystery to me. Like, it's like I don't know. You climb Mount Everest. There's nothing wrong. You got this. The finish line, the peak of the mountain is 50 feet away. You're like, "Oh, I'm good. Turn around and go back." You never summit Mount Everest. You create this trust. You go through the problem. You're going to protect your family and you never you don't finish the job. The attorney doesn't help you finish the job. I don't understand it. Well, if you follow football last week, there was a guy who was running for a long touchdown and the five yard line to wave the ball in the hand of his opponent and it fell out, went through the end zone and then became not only was it not a touchdown, it was a turn the ball over the other team.

18:59 Oh, we lost you. Sorry, I can't I wave my hands a lot. I'm hitting the wrong button. And I feel like it's such a disservice that I have I have an estate right now where very complicated estate with $40 million of assets, all kinds of stuff in there. He paid a lot of money to an attorney to create a plan. I believe met a couple times, put together the whole binder, never executed it. Now, it might be he wasn't ready to, but still the attorney got paid. Now you and I know if most loan officers got paid their commission as soon as a customer say signed the application, how many would ever follow through? None. Almost none. And I think attorneys put themselves in that position where if they get paid and then the customer never actually executes and records and as a result in my case, I am sure this estate's paying an extra half million dollars in legal fees and costs and taxes and stuff because the plan was never put in place. It's just and yet the attorney got their full fee for the estate plan and that just shouldn't be in my book that the job's not done until you record those documents and that's critical. Okay, look, we went 20 minutes on this part of the topic and we're not even near halfway done. Because the lack of an estate plan is saying the reverse mortgage end of process, which is a mess to begin with, is worse without an estate plan. And we've covered that. But in of itself, even if you have an estate plan, many people find that process challenging. And particularly, I would say those are people who go to the 1-800 number and there's a movie star who tells them to get the mortgage. They have no relationship with the company. Their customer service is another 800 number that's answered in the Philippines or in China and their house is at risk and they don't have way to help them. They have a professional they have a relationship with. So, let's talk a bit about the problems people have at the end of the service. What are the most common kind of phone calls you get besides the estate plan? Let's assume they don't need probate. They're in a different state or they have an estate plan. What are the phone calls that you get? Because I know I get these from

21:03 You prospective heirs on a property. Yeah. So, you know, if some of the some of these here's the big problem. I hear from homeowners that are struggling in the process, right? And somehow they find me and well it's not the homeowner, it's the heirs or the successor trustee and they're trying to work with a call center, right? And there's this much money in the loan origination process, right? There's plenty of money in the loan origination where everybody gets paid, everybody does a great work, but guess how much money is in the loan servicing, right? They've got to be efficient and tight and it's a call center and they're not paying those people very much. Right.

21:42 Right. And they don't have the expertise. So the phone call I get, these are companies that spend all day long on AI to eliminate the human beings so that it works like 90% of the time. So it's kind of like customer service at Amazon or Google where there isn't any really. That's the goal.

21:56 You're in a phone tree, right? Route yourself like, "Oh my gosh, no, I don't want to route myself to I just want a person. Press zero. Press zero." Right. Right. And so and then even if they do get a person eventually that's a frontline person who's getting paid, you know, minimum wage. Maybe they're international and maybe there's even a language barrier, right? We've all experienced that. And so, I don't lo I don't love the loan servicing that occurs for my clients, reverse mortgage people, you know, because, it's, a lot of times it's not going to go well if there's any kind of level of complication, you know, insurance loss or, maybe they think they're no longer in the home. But the worst one of course is when there's been a death of the borrower and the heirs are stepping in and then and then the successor trustee steps in and they're trying to work with these people in a call center. They don't know how to work with them and the people that work they don't so it's just a it's just a problem. There's no real e there's not enough effort enough not enough resources not enough education on either of these two parties to understand what needs to happen. Right? And then the loan serer is sending notices to the house and other ways of communicating is we need to be paid back. We need paid back. They become aggressive debt collectors,

23:17 Right? And the heirs, the successor trustee doesn't know how to handle that. And they start making decisions. Oh my gosh, I got to pay them back. So, instead of doing something that might be in their best interest, maybe they want to keep the home. Or maybe they'd like to spend a little bit of money, get the house looking good, clean up the house, show it, take their time selling it so they can get top dollar, but they feel like they can't, right? I've had families give up equity just to get out from under this because they thought they had to, you know, and so they'll sign away the house and they're giving up what could be housing wealth that the that the heirs could benefit from. So the process is very flawed if people knew, you know, they the lender knows what they want to have happen and they know what they need to have happen. They need to be paid back. They need to be paid back as soon as possible. They're going to communicate that what the what the heirs don't know people handling mom and dad's estate is that they have rights and protections too. And if they communicate with the loan serer or if they get help from someone like me, well, they can take their time. You know, they just need to do paperwork. They need to communicate and they need to meet all of these steps, guidelines, processes so that they can have all of their options. Oh, you want to keep the home for some reason? Let's work on that, right? You want to sell the home real fast. Okay, we know how to expedite getting that home sold so you can realize more proceeds and not have these ongoing bills paid connected to the house that nobody's living in. Oh, you want to spend a little bit of time, a little bit of money to maximize the home sale, make it sell for more, make it sell faster by fixing up the house. Okay, we got you. We can do that. They have those choices, but without professional representation or without the education, they won't know that and they'll feel pressured.

25:11 They'll feel rushed. They won't make the decisions that are maybe in their best interest they'd prefer to make and they get undesirable result. And one of the things you're talking about, one of the problems in our industry is reputation. And I would not be surprised if a part of our reputation problem with this program is because of how these reverse mortgages end. Because most families that go through the end of reverse mortgage process, they have a bad experience and then they're not excited to consider this for themselves or friends or family and whenever the reverse mortgage topic comes up, they're not going to have anything good to say. Well, plus attorneys not because they were just in an exparte trying to stop forclosure on a property. You know, I think first off, true confession, I've spread some of the disinformation. And again, it's why I do this podcast so I can learn and share. I know that on the FHA loans, the HECMs loans and most other ones, there's a process where you have about six months from the date from the date of death to resolve the mortgage. And they're going to say, you know, pay us off and you can sell the house, you could, you know, whatever you want to do with it. Keep the house, pay us off, we don't care, and we're going to give you six months, which in of itself is a reasonable time. The problem is many times families don't find out until 5 months and 31 days when the notice comes that we're going to foreclose. And so there's a mistake in saying that you can get up to two extensions. Well, you can get up to a million extensions. The reality is in California, you're not going to get one. Doesn't matter what they say to you on the phone, in my experience, you're not getting an extension. And if the if the company you got the loan from sold to a servicing entity or even more there's certain servicing entities that want to collect payments other ones that just forclose.

26:58 If they sell to one of those law firms they're just going to race to force you to pay them off either foreclosure or however you want to pay them off and they don't care because now their name is not your lender. The name is some law firm that's collecting. And so I'm a little guilty and I would just say you need to race to resolve this and that doesn't mean forgo your options. That means if you can talk to a Hank and he can get walk you through your options, know what your options are. But don't listen to the person on the 800 number saying, "Oh, don't worry. You know, we can give you up to two extensions." Yeah. And picks could fly, but they're never going to give you the extensions. That's in my experience never happens. And the other thing people say is, "Well, you know, we can hire an attorney to stop forclosure." You can. And that's very expensive, right? So I guess the situation is that your customer passed and so the person calling you a definition is not your customer. So I guess how do you break down that threshold because you want the kids or the heirs to know you're the resource. If they've passed it might be too late to make that clear. What are options? What can you do to help them help that family understand what their options are before it's too late?

28:15 Yeah. So, a lot of times they get to me and it's too late, right? But a lot of times they get to me in time. And they finally they have somebody that knows what they're talking about, you know, because even understand the reverse mortgage program, you know, like who do you know that's an expert on this? Well, I nobody I have attorneys and financial planners and mortgage professionals, accountants. No one knows how the reverse mortgage program works, right? They're just there's a few hundred of us. You're one. But there's not very many reverse mortgage experts as it is. And then end of reverse mortgage, even me, I'm guilty about giving bad information. When I first started doing this, I'd tell people, "Oh, you have up to a year to resolve your reverse mortgage."

29:03 Yeah. No. No, you don't. Maybe if you check all the boxes, if you do everything perfectly, if you're communicating, you might be able to get up to a year. Very rare. And you and I bad information on that. We're no different. We go to these I do a presentations in front of my peers, loan officers, and in front of clients. And one of the ways we start the presentation is and the and the content the presentation is what do I need to know about the end of my reverse mortgage? So, we'll start the presentation. How many of you raise your hand if you understand that you have up to 12 months to pay back your reverse mortgage after you die? Everybody raises their hand. And when we doing it for our loan officers, how many of you been telling your clients you have up to everybody raises their hand and that's not true. Within 60 days, when somebody dies, reverse mortgage homeowner dies, the loan serer is notified. Social Security Death Index, you probably heard of that. Social Security. People subscribe to Social Security Death Index. They get notified. Social Security knows and they share that. It's a probably a spreadsheet or something. Oh, okay. Jeff Smith died. They send a condolence letter. You have 60 days to let us know what you're going to do about this reverse mortgage debt. If they do nothing, they'll start the foreclosure process. So, if people get to me in time, depending on how far, a lot of times if they're if they've done nothing, they're five, six, seven months in, it's too late. And you talk about how attorneys are going to behave. We had an attorney that was selling this house and I don't know if he was also a Realtor®, but he was going to sell this house. We were still within the time frame and he was bulldozing his way.

30:41 This home sale was going to happen. The family wanted to keep the house. We had to wrestle it away from him. We had I had to call him multiple times. We had to write him a letter. It didn't have to be sold. But according to this attorney who must have had his own interest represented in making sure this house sold, this house had to be sold. There were no other choices. Well, that was 6 months ago. And we got that family still in the house because we did a new reverse mortgage for the ex-wife that wanted the house. And so it is fraught with risks. Homeowners have options, the heirs have options. But they have to be educated, informed, they need professional representation, they need to communicate and none of that rare does that happen. Most of the time, most of these end of these reverse mortgages, there are problems and there are people that are very unhappy with their experience and they don't get the best result. We want to fix that. We don't want that to be true. And yet those cases I'm sure where you are involved not just with a client but perhaps their accountant and or financial planner and or estate planning attorney that when something when they pass they know what's going on and they're going to call and say you need to talk to Hank and at least get a game plan together. You might want to keep the property. Great. You know you might not need a new mortgage because you have enough cash. Great. But let's get a game plan together and make sure we're on the right page of what to do. Because like I one of the things you said that's true people don't realize is that mortgage is accumulating interest whether you make payments or not. It takes a lot of the urgency away because nobody's writing a check. But if you told them every month well yeah okay but your $500,000 mortgage at I don't know seven 7% interest is $3,000 a month or so every month. And for five months that's $15,000 which might be okay with you which might not be okay with you. At least at least know the numbers so that you're in a game plan where you can start to win the game rather than at the end just write checks to all the

32:42 Attorneys and fees and all that kind of stuff. So, yeah. And then and then and then taxes, right? And you're paying taxes and then oh my gosh, heaven forbid you that mom and dad didn't establish a trust before they died. What is probate going to cost them?

32:56 Right. Right. And what about the delays there? I had a family the home was sold while it was in probate because of the reverse mortgage. The reverse mort they waited too long and they reverse mortgage lender wouldn't wait couldn't wait any longer. They sold the home while it was in probate. I do that all the time. I mean that's a regular look and they're not going to sell the house. You can open a probate and have authority within 30 days. And if you want to sell the house, sell it day 31 or day 60 or 90 or whatever you want to do. If that's your plan, if you want to keep the house or you want to whatever you want some time to think about it, you can do that. Just get the plan in place to do that. And that might be refinancing. It might be getting a probate to get the title changed. It might be in probate to get a temporary loan, a bridge loan to take time. So there's a lot of different options, but you don't have any options if you're not, you know, sitting down huddling up and figuring out what the what the options are. Talk a little bit about your involvement, if anything, with the other professionals in a in a customer's life. Do you how involved do you get with CPAs, financial planners, on these kind of issues?

34:06 Yeah. So, not a lot with CPAs, but, a lot of financial planners, attorneys, particularly, probate attorneys recently, like, they've got this attorney got mom and dad didn't have a trust, their dad, they had a reverse mortgage, and the attorney is trying to work with the loan servicing company and getting nowhere, right? So we had to go in. We're well connected with the loan servicing companies and so we have contacts there so that we can kind of jump the queue and get to some decision makers some people that are effective maybe not the frontline people. So, you know, fiduciari, I think you and I talked about this. There's not enough fiduciaries. And so many people need a fiduciary. There are a lot of, people out there 70, 80, 90 years old where, they need somebody to act on their behalf either, you know, while they're still alive for whatever reason. They don't have any family or they don't have the right person. And so, fiduciaries, estate planning attorneys, financial planners, whatever is needed, you know, to be the resource, to be the expert for these people, when something happens or when something needs to happen.

35:28 Well, that's why I'd like you position yourself as an inverse mortgage consultant because everybody, you know, promises to do a loan when you need the loan. The key is, you know, how do you help a customer when there's a problem? And that person is who everybody turns to when they need a loan later. It's like me with probate real estate. You know, I have attorneys and Realtors® call me while they're already in a probate or in a sale and there's a problem. Great. Because next time they're going to call me upfront to avoid that situation. So I think loan officers can be very transactional. And I think the challenge for the industry as a former originator is understanding that marketing is not just about fancy pictures and seeing how good you are. It's actually giving your prospective customers and customers valuable help resources so that when they need somebody, you're the resource they call. And that's what I've done in my business. I don't do any I'm not Instagram. I don't do videos other than content like this. Why? Because I want people to think of me as an expert. So when they have a problem, they call me and I'm the problem solver. And I may not do it. They may call me and say, "Do you know, do you do reverse mortgages?" Well, I don't, but I know great people who do like Hank Rhoads. And you give him a call and he'll set you up so that you win at the end of the game, not just lose. So, I really appreciated your focus. Again, I apologize for last time we got distracted a little bit and didn't get into this detail. This is an endless topic. I mean, there's all kinds of problems people face, but I guess my question now, let's look at consumers who might have a reverse mortgage and are struggling with what to do. Maybe their parents passed and they're not sure to get in control of it. Do you offer consulting? How does somebody where's the process start for somebody maybe who didn't do a loan with you that needs some help from or an attorney or a financial planner? What's this the process for somebody to get started with you?

37:17 Yeah. So, I just need to hear from someone and then there's a discovery process like what's going on and you know if they don't have a trust I would want to start getting them help for that. And most of the time the best choice for them to get the trust their estate plan going because it's more than just a trust. The trust is critical for passing the assets but it comes with everything else that we talked about. So I explore that with them and then they all know, you know, people that don't have a trust, they know they need a trust and so I find out what their options are, who they have. And typically, my attorney, my estate planning attorney who's very affordable, he's the best choice a lot of times because we have a process. We could get this done in a week if we needed to, if there was a hurry. Otherwise, it might take a month. But we have all the parts and pieces notorized, get this recorded, you know, the questionnaire, get it back to the attorney, draws it up, review it. So, when I hear from somebody and we do that discovery process, they like the idea of using my solution because it's a wraparound solution. They can get done

38:23 Effectively, efficiently, affordably. So we go about doing that for them. And then they end up with a much better result and a month from now they're in great shape knowing that their home is now in their now in their estate plan and their heirs are going to have a much easier time and their wealth is going to transfer to the people they want it to transfer to. So yeah, just probably a series of phone calls with me and the attorney and I do an introductory email to them and the attorney and the process gets started and we bring in any trusted advisors that are important. A lot of times family members or other experts for them. We want everybody involved. You know, that gets the best result. But, you know, a lot of homeowners like, "No, I got this." And that's true. So, only if they want trusted advisors. You know, half of my half of my elderly clients want their kids involved. The other half like, "No, I got this. I'm not going to involve my kids necessarily until I need them and hopefully that's when I'm like 90."

39:20 Yeah. I have that same misconception of my I need to get my kids more involved. With all that said, look, I really appreciate your professional approach to it. From the time that we met, I thought, you know, you really distinguish yourself in this area that I think is so important that other originators aren't be talking about those who are doing reverse mortgages. I think it's important to work with a specialist in reverse mortgages and I think it's also important to have one who understands the end of the process because at the end of the day, the customer didn't get the mortgage just for originating it. They got it for preserving wealth. So, we have a contact information on the screen. Hank Rhoads [phone number] and then he has a website on American Senior Lending platform. You got a handsome picture of him and all his contact info, his email address and such. And again, it sounds to me like whether you're you have a loan and you have questions on what to do with it or you're looking to get a reverse mortgage or you're a professional in the field and want to help your customer, this would be a great opportunity to meet with Hank and get the best possible result. Hank, again, thanks so much for being on the call. I really appreciate your time, but more importantly, I appreciate your setting high standards for the originators in your field.

40:28 My pleasure. Great to be on your podcast, Bill. Have a great day. Thanks so much, everybody. Thank you. And for the rest of us, this is Bill Gross, the Reverse Mortgage Podcast. We have a new episode out every week. We often talk to top originators in the field. We talk to managers and vendors as well. We can continue the conversation on our Facebook group, the Reverse Mortgage Podcast. Go there if you have questions, looking for referrals. But if I can help anyway, reach out to me at Billgross Probate on social media. And as always, make today your best day ever.