Homestead Credit Application For Senior Citizens & Disabled: Fill & Download for Free

A reverse mortgage is also referred to as a Home Equity Conversion Mortgage or HECM. I will use the terms “reverse mortgage” and “HECM” interchangeably. A reverse mortgage is a FHA program that allows people who are over the age of 62 to access some of their home equity that they have built up over the years. A senior citizen can benefit from a HECM in the form of a monthly check or an available line of credit to draw upon when needed.Make no mistake, a HECM is a loan. The lender is a bank that wants to get paid back, with interest. The only real difference between a reverse mortgage and a typical mortgage is the repayment obligation. The borrower does not personally guarantee the debt. The borrower can repay the debt, in full, with interest at any time….or their heirs can do so after the borrower passes away. But, otherwise, the bank will be able to foreclose on the property as their only remedy for getting paid back.For this reason, as part of the reverse-mortgage application process, your home will need to be appraised. The HECM lender will only give you a percentage of your home’s value because they want to make sure that the house can be sold to at least cover their loan amount with accumulated interest on top.Reverse Mortgage DrawbacksThere are plenty of advantages to HECMs (compared to HELOCs). HECMs are not a second mortgage (so not getting a lump sum and paying back over 10 years), HECMs, at the latest, can be paid back after the borrower/beneficiary passes away. But there is one primary drawback to HECMs, and it can be summarized in two words: closing costs. HECM closing costs are huge compared to home equity lines of credit (HELOC).Closing costs to obtain the HECM / reverse mortgage[1][1][1][1], including paying a “loan origination fee” can be substantial – totaling approximate 5% of what the home appraises for! If a house appraises for $400,000, the loan might only be, say, 70% of that.If the loan is $280,000, and you pay $20,000 in closing costs (i.e. 7% of the actual loan amount, 5% of the home’s appraisal value) which, comes out of the loan amount. In this hypothetical scenario, then you are only getting to enjoy 260K.Reverse Mortgage and Medicaid PlanningHELOCs and reverse mortgages are useful Medicaid-planning tools, especially when equity in the primary residence exceeds Florida homestead exemption limits ($560,000 as of July 2017).Footnotes[1] Reverse Mortgage | Blog[1] Reverse Mortgage | Blog[1] Reverse Mortgage | Blog[1] Reverse Mortgage | Blog

pre 9/11 it was not bad. Raids did take place from time to time but you could get an ITIN number to time taxes and some places would use it in lieau of an SSN. You could get a drivers license.All of that changed after 9/11.Raids became more prevalent and in more public spaces including supermarkets, public buildings even schools where raided at one point. People where being stopped on the street through laws such as sb1070 which became synonymous with Jim Crow era laws where it caricaturized what an undocumented immigrant looked like as a guide for who police should stop and ask for their papers. (The description stuck with me all these years but it was someone that had a darker skin complexion, was shorter, carried a rag by the seams of their pants, spoke Spanish).As a result it felt unsafe for my family to go out of our house and enjoy holidays. We lived in Florida which straddles the line of being conservative.There was also an emerging threat during the holidays. It was common for police to erect roadblocks, still prevalent to this day, and use those road blocks to ask for papers. It became common to see on the news lines of people caught during the roadblocks since after 9/11 it was no longer possible to get a drivers license or state id.Getting a ticket for a moving violation or being in a small fender bender became extremely expensive. In our experience when another car hit my dads car and they where at fault we had to hire a lawyer and it cost all our savings for a long time. At least 5k.My dad was also stopped by police random after dropping someone off at the airport. Fortunately my sister was just becoming a us citizen and was able to claim him but in the period he was still undocumented the lawyer charged 3k to represent my dad and to delay the proceedings giving just enough time for him to attain status and obtain a legitimate drivers license.In Florida residents are able to claim homestead exceptions on their properties where they reside bringing taxes significantly down. We could not on our house which we had inherited. As a result our property taxes where 5k per year. Conversely after they became permanent residents and claimed homestead exemptions those taxes dropped to less than 1k.They had also been filing taxes all along using the ITIN number however none of that goes to their credit unlike when someone with legal status pays taxes it is used as a factor that determines return after retirement.For me, being undocumented gave me something very heavy to carry on my shoulders at a very young age. I learned of my status when I was in elementary school, it changed me. I became far more reserved and talked esa with people. After 9/11 I became even more distant from people. Did not go to any social events in fear that someone would do something and bring forth unnecessary attention. I feared police at all costs and if I was a victim of crime would rather continue than respirated. And in fact was assaulted on the street once, not reported.the raids where worst when I was finishing middle school and getting into high school. My middle school was in a predominantly Haitian area. I would start the year and see the seats start to empty by the end of the year of families that where deported back to Haiti.In high school is where reported of schools being raided started to surface. It involved at the time border patrol going into schools and taking any students who where likely undocumented. This resulted in a lot of students being absent as parents would not send them to school. I was in a small school so felt safer that the school would not be a priority. It was a magnet program in a very wealthy area.I should also point out that another obvious consequence of 9/11 related to jobs. E-verify roller out and my dad lost all his jobs. He started working at a more labor intensive job where he got a back injury. At 12–13 years old I started working in a warehouse to help support my family making far below minimum wage. Kept that job through almost all of high school.I would usually work after school was done and on weekends helping my dad.Education was also highly uncertain for me. I was to graduate high school in 2007 and after 9/11 and through all of high school I truly believed my education would cease after I finished high school. I must remind that out of fear I did not share my status with anyone and feared people finding out I was undocumented. I was also attending a very prestigious high school with a college placement rate of 100% since it was opened. So I was reaching a very conflicting point.Assistance for tuition was not really a thing for undocumented students at the time. Instead in some of my applications schools where requiring proof of balance in a sufficient amount to cover all 4–5 years of education plus living expenses immediately. Meaning at least a balance of yourself or someone willing to cover for you of at least 300k.I was fortunate to get into a college that gave me a merit based scholarship making my education actually feasible, since as undocumented I am not able to apply for any federal student loans as my peers could or even get any federally funded assistance or scholarships.This also meant I had no ability to work and it was through my parents working and my sister who happened to move within the state that I made it work. This also meant that at one point I was commuting 5 hours per day to get to college.I suffered through severe depression and severe anxiety (diagnosed sophomore/junior year) after I had failed an entire semester of classes (partially as a result of commute that made it impossible for me to return home between finals). This forced me to take leaves of absence in order to work and save up money and extended when I could graduate. It further made it challenging to have any sort of social life.I have learned most people that where undocumented in this time period also suffered from depression and anxiety.As someone that is undocumented and in college. At least at the time which was before DACA I was unable to work, this also translates to internships. So while I got a STEM degree, I was not actually to get any hands on experience due to my status. And in fact to this day, 7 years after getting an engineering degree I had not worked one day as an engineer. Turns out employers do not hire engineers without experience and my university did not allow anyone to provide internships without pay for any reason which meant through their policies I could not get any experience since I could not be paid in my status.I did get involved with non-profit organizations and that helped me get out of the dark place I was in while suffering through anxiety and depression. Through junior and senior year I founded, co-founded or was an executive board member in more than 12 organizations spanning in the college level, state level and even national level. And pulled my grade up to graduate at a more decent gpa. The semesters I failed tarnished my ability to get a merit based scholarship despite starting strong and ending stronger.Today I have been able to adjust my status through marriage. I met my spouse when I was coming out of that dark period in my time in college and we dated for 4 years before getting married.While I was not able to get into engineering work then and even as recent as 2017 I did more work in the non-profit sector and now gainfully employeed and salaried. I have my naturalization interview in January 2020.But even now I don’t feel the greatest. I did lose my childhood. I worked and felt anxiety and depression from something out of my control. And as I get ready to naturalize I feel conflicts in my own identity. I feel that I am neither from here nor from the country I left when I was 8 years old.I fear eventually returning home and seeing everyone I left as much older. The place where I came from ripped to pieces and changed drastically. I still have a slight fear of authority figures, PTSD from my years growing up. And holidays don’t feel that special to me also PTSD since that was when it was most dangerous for me to go out.I got a degree that is very valuable but useless to me and that makes me sad. Being undocumented and growing up undocumented was very challenging and did change the way I saw and see the world through this day.