In Australia, Reverse Mortgage Regulation Gaining Support

Posted by charles dennis

June 5, 2007

On this site, there has been much attention given to the need for more regulation in the reverse mortgage industry to prevent major headaches in the future, including class action suits and large scale foreclosures. In Australia, industry regulatory groups are cracking down on misleading advertising on such terms as “no payments ever.”

The corporate watchdog has come down hard on the growing number of reverse mortgage providers, warning them to stop using misleading and unclear advertising.The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) said it has reviewed suppliers and found five cases of misleading advertisements that made claims suggesting that reverse mortgages did not need to be repaid.

The reverse mortgage market has more than doubled in the last 12 months.

The regulator approached the promoters of the advertisements and said each promoter immediately withdrew or changed their advertising.

The statements used in the advertisements included ‘there are no repayments’, ‘no loan repayments ever’ and ‘no need to make repayments!!’. Full Story