🔑 Use Your House to Pay for Your House
Property taxes climbing? Let the house cover its own bills.
It’s a painful irony: your home appreciates, your property taxes rise with it, and suddenly the appreciation that made you wealthier on paper is squeezing you out of the house. If you’re 62 or better, a HECM flips that script — use your house to pay for your house. A reverse mortgage line of credit or monthly advance can cover rising taxes, insurance, and upkeep from the home’s own equity, so staying put stops being a budget question. For homeowners who’ve had trouble keeping up, HUD even has a purpose-built tool: a LESA (Life Expectancy Set-Aside) that reserves funds specifically to pay taxes and insurance for you.
Is this you?
This strategy tends to fit…
- Longtime homeowners watching property taxes outpace their fixed income
- Anyone weighing “sell the house I love” against “find the money somewhere”
- Homeowners behind (or nearly behind) on taxes or insurance who want to protect the home
- People who want home repairs and maintenance funded from the home itself
Questions people actually ask
Use Your House to Pay for Your House: straight answers
What exactly is a LESA?
A Life Expectancy Set-Aside — a portion of your reverse mortgage proceeds reserved at closing specifically to pay property taxes and homeowners insurance on your behalf, sized to your life expectancy. It reduces the cash otherwise available to you, but it makes the two obligations most likely to threaten a senior’s homeownership essentially automatic.
I’m behind on my property taxes. Can a reverse mortgage still help?
Often, yes — delinquent property taxes can typically be paid off at closing from your proceeds, and depending on your history, a LESA may be required or advisable to keep them current going forward. The sooner you have the conversation, the more options exist. Don’t wait until a tax sale is looming.
Doesn’t using equity for bills just burn down my kids’ inheritance?
It spends some equity, yes — but compare it to the alternative: selling the home under pressure, paying transaction costs, and renting. Many families would rather see Mom or Dad stay safely in the home, with the loan repaid from the home’s value later, than force a sale now. It’s a values conversation worth having with your family, and Kelly is happy to be in the room for it.
What obligations do I still have?
The same ones every homeowner has: property taxes, homeowners insurance, any HOA dues, home maintenance, and living in the home as your primary residence. A reverse mortgage doesn’t remove those obligations — it gives you a dedicated source of funds to meet them.
Keep exploring
Eliminate Your Monthly Payment
Use a HECM to pay off your current mortgage and retire the required monthly principal & interest payment for as long as you live in your home.
Learn more →The RELOC: A Growing Line of Credit
A reverse mortgage line of credit gives you a credit line whose unused portion grows over time by program rule — with no required monthly mortgage payment.
Learn more →Right-Size with the H4P
The HECM for Purchase (H4P) lets you buy your next home with a substantial down payment — and no required monthly mortgage payment on the rest.
Learn more →Wondering if this fits your plan?
That's literally what the home equity check-up is for. One friendly conversation, your real numbers, zero pressure — bring your family or your advisor.