What Can You Do As a Mortgage Lender If a Borrower Dies Before Paying
Mortgage lenders lend the money for making profit. They do not have any issues and they just wants to make profit. You can get the money back from the borrower if he is present. You might have to give the relaxation to the borrower to some extent. In this way you will be affected to the least extent only. However what will you do if the borrower dies before paying the mortgage? You might feel helpless in such cases.
However as a lender you will definitely be in dilemma that what you can do? Though, you will be quite happy to note that you have some options in such cases as well.
Suppose you feel that the borrower is not going to live for long then you can ask him to sign a deal with you. In that deal you will have to mention that the person whom the property is transferred after the death of the borrower will be responsible for paying back the mortgage. This is extremely important for you. You need to realize this fact.
Some times it does happen that the borrower becomes helpless as he goes into the coma due to some disease or injury. He is virtually handicapped and one cannot really ask him to pay back the mortgage. But as a lender you should have in your mind that this might happen in the future and hence you should get the deal prepared in the same way.
In such cases when the borrower is physically or mentally not in a position to talk about the mortgage, on his behalf a power of attorney is given to some relative. Hence you should make sure that in the POA it is also written that that person will be responsible for paying back the mortgage.
These are some of the ways. But you will realize that you need to help the borrower as well. That is why most of the lenders give some relaxation to those borrowers. If the amount is low then the lender usually discards such loans. Even if the lender finds that he can bear the loss then he usually discards the loan after the death of the borrower.
However sometimes the borrower is economically sound and the problem is just that he has died. In such cases the lender definitely goes for the justice and asks the new owner of the property to sign the deal.