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Reverse Mortgage Counselors Launch National Housing Counseling Association
By James Comtois
WASHINGTON-A new trade group has been formed to support education initiatives and provide resources to improve the operational efficiency, consistency and financial sustainability of reverse mortgage counseling programs nationwide.
The National Housing Counseling Association, formed by a coalition of reverse mortgage counseling agencies and elder care experts, will build on existing best practices in the reverse mortgage counseling industry and will offer membership to all HUD-approved housing counseling agencies which agree to abide by the NHCA code of ethics.
"The association was created to ensure the availability and quality of reverse mortgage counseling for seniors," said Chuck Stanley, NHCA spokesperson in a statement. "With the near exhaustion of available HUD funds for HECM counseling and the delay in HUD's borrower pay regulation, many counseling agencies are being forced to cut back on counseling services."
Mr. Stanley added that the NHCA has developed an approach to accessing additional grant funds "without the perceived conflict of interest associated with direct contributions by individual reverse mortgage lenders. We believe this approach will be a win-win for all reverse mortgage counseling agencies, their clients and the reverse mortgage industry as a whole."
Participating agencies will have access to DirectConnect Reverse Mortgage Counseling Services software, which will be used to gather counseling session data for use in grant reimbursement and research purposes.
NHCA is currently endorsed by many HUD-approved counseling agencies, and agencies from each of the credit counseling trade organizations, American Association of Debt Management Organizations, Association of Independent Consumer Credit Counseling Agencies and the National Foundation for Credit Counseling.
These participating agencies are responsible for providing more than 80% of reverse mortgage counseling sessions done today: By Design Financial Solutions, Consumer Credit Counseling Service of Forsyth County, Consumer Credit Counseling Service of San Francisco, National Foundation for Debt Management, Lutheran Social Services of Duluth, Springboard and Money Management International (and its 120 CCCS branch offices throughout the country).
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