Cousin fears his Mom's sneaky husband has taken out a reverse mortgage on their home behind her back. How to find out for certain?

I believe that reverse mortgage lenders insist on a first position so that any prior mortgages would be paid off. If an RM lender is in second position, it would be in the situation of advancing funds, likely not being paid off, but being unable to acquire the house when the borrower dies. So that's a bad deal all around.

So, yes, the exisiting lender would know if a reverse mortgage has taken place because it would have been paid off, so you could contact the lender.

You can also contact the register of deeds, or other county department responsible for recording real property transactions. Years ago in our county recordings were about 6 weeks behind so recordings would show up on the records for that amount of time. But with electronic conversion, recordings may show up quicker, depending on the county and the volume of recordings.

You can also contact the local city/township treasurer, as that office would get notice (probably from the register of deeds) of mortgages if the mortgagee (lender) requires that taxes be paid by it as a term in the mortgage. I don't know how frequently or quickly the county advises the local community though.

Lastly, any lender would presumably require all feeholders of the property to sign any mortgage. If the deed to the property is joint (husband and wife), your mother would have to sign as well.

Credit reports will also reflect mortgage indebtedness.

You might want to consider asking your mother if you can put a credit (or security) freeze on her credit report. That creates restricted access to credit. I would think even an RM lender would pull a credit report before granting a mortgage. Again, I'm assuming that title to the home is held jointly.

One way to tell if a house has a Reversed Mortgage is to pay a title company to run a title search on the property.... any liens would be noted. You probably would need Power of Attorney from your Mom in order to do this.

Contact your county clerk's office. Any change of mortgage would have to be duly recorded with the county of residence. Depending on how these document's flow, the county treasurer may have information on the "deed of trust" if reverse mortgage lenders file them that way. Was the house in "joint tenancy" with your step father?

I think I'd be getting mom to a lawyer to look into what her rights and responsibilities are vis a vis this relationship.

Ha-GA you are the 1st one to catch that it is my Aunt and her DH we are talking about, :-), but that's alright, content and attempts at helping all the same anyway. Yes, joint ownership, her name on the title for the home, same as it was on the last house. Difference being in that instance she agreed to the huge refi 10 years back, to pay off his "secret" debt. But she had too, it had gotten so big there was no way he could keep up the minimum payments on cards and pay the bills from the joint funds she dumped her money into, so he had to come clean to get out of trouble. At which point she took over the finances permanently, like she needed another chore.

I did take the advice of mincemeat, ran a county parcel check, got a parcel number, ran a check with the deed dept off of that. It looks like there is nothing but the modest 1st mortgage against the property right now. Hope that's true. Little Couz is a sharp boy, but his Father has passed, I am kinda big sis to all of them, so when he brought it up on the phone today it worried me that he could be on to something.

Why she keeps him around, good question, but, most of the time he's a good guy, personable, right in there to help anyone, he just really seems to suck at handling money. I've had the PI thought before, regarding this issue though.

Could he have simply taken out several credits cards in her name?

I just realized the woman is your aunt, not your mother. Sorry.

I was wondering the same thing as Babalou, but more to the point of why your aunt keeps this guy around.

The other possibility of getting money besides Babalou's credit card suggestion is that he's tapped into funds available from a loan shark, which would be far worse than getting an RM.

Maybe it's time for a PI to see what this guy is up to.

New, good to hear there's no RM recorded. It wouldn't hurt to keep checking though; it sounds as if your uncle has some serious problems with financial control, so ongoing monitoring is probably a good idea. It also wouldn't hurt for your aunt to put a 90 day fraud alert on both their credit reports; not only will it allow her to get copies of the reports for free, but if she renews them every quarter she can monitor them for any suspicious activity.

I'm really glad though that there's no recorded RM. Next time you call, you can ask how current the recordings are so you know if there's any lag time.