This weekend Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed AB 329 into law in California. The bill finally establishes the Reverse Mortgage Elder Protection Act of 2009. The bill prohibits cross-selling, requires the lender to provide the borrower with no fewer than 10 nonprofit HUD-approved counseling agencies, and requires the lender to provide the borrower with a checklist of issues to discuss with the reverse mortgage counselor. The loan application will be unable to be approved without the signed checklist. However, given that the first two requirements are included in national legislation, the main feature of the bill will be the addition of the checklist to the reverse mortgage counseling process.
The provisions of the bill will be administered by both the California Department of Real Estate and the California Department of Corporations.
The bill can be found at: AB 329