Moving with a reverse mortgage is fine as a visit. It ends the loan as a permanent change of principal residence. Jay Zayer, CRMP, is a reverse mortgage specialist at reversemortgage.coach. 24 CFR 206.27(c)(2) makes the balance due when the property ceases to be your principal residence. Packing the house and leaving the keys with a neighbor is that event. A month with grandchildren is not, if you intend to return and you tell the servicer when the letter asks.
Take a homeowner in Chico, California named Gita, 73, occupying the house, who wanted to relocate to a daughter’s spare room in Oregon “just for a while” and keep drawing the line. That is a move. See borrower in a nursing home if the destination is a facility. Stay here for a planned move to another dwelling.
A HECM is FHA-insured. A change of address is not a new case number.
What is a temporary absence, and what is a principal-residence change?
Temporary: you intend to return. You still treat the mortgaged house as home. Mortgagee Letter 2023-23 wants absences longer than two months reported so the file does not look vacant. Health-care: 24 CFR 206.3 allows up to twelve consecutive months in an institution without losing principal-residence status.
Permanent: a new home is where you live and intend to stay. The HECM house is listed, emptied, or handed to a relative. Certification would be a lie. That is 24 CFR 206.27(c)(2)(i).
Gita’s unused line does not follow her to Oregon. Capacity at origination sat in a mid-30s to low-50s band of then-appraised value, driven by age and expected rate. The origination tool will not occupy Chico for her. Do not interpolate HUD factor tables.
Draw what the plan allows before you leave only if that is a lawful draw on a still-occupying borrower. Drawing on the way out the door while the house is already vacant is how occupancy default and a due letter arrive together.
What are the clean ways to leave the HECM house?
Sell and pay the servicer’s dated quote. See selling while the loan is active. Refinance into a forward loan in your name if a lender will do that and you can make the payment. Pay the HECM from other funds and keep the empty house as a second home — possible as a payoff, not as a living HECM. Deed in lieu if keeping and selling are both gone.
A second geography: a 68-year-old in Show Low, Arizona who winters in a rented Mesa apartment and still occupies Show Low as home. Reporting the winter absence is the clean path. Abandoning Show Low for Mesa as the new home is a due event. Arizona has no Civil Code 1923.2(k) pause on a move. California’s origination hold does not apply either.
Jay confirmed a LESA cannot be added so the empty house “pays its own taxes” after you leave. If a LESA already exists, it follows the origination schedule until the loan ends. It does not create occupancy.
Upfront MIP of 2.00 percent of maximum claim amount was already charged under HUD Mortgagee Letter 2017-12. Annual MIP at 0.50 percent of outstanding balance still accrues until payoff. Moving does not rebate either.
Can I originate a new HECM on the house I am moving into?
If that house will be your principal residence, you are 62, and you meet the rest of 24 CFR Part 206, HECM for Purchase under 24 CFR 206.44 or a refinance on a house you already bought are separate files. The old loan still has to be paid. See downsize strategy. Do not run two HECMs on two houses. You get one principal residence.
An adjustable HECM on the old house still uses 1-month CMT plus margin until it is paid. A new file uses the expected rate then in force, rounded to 0.125 percent under 24 CFR 206.3.
Counseling for a new origination still costs $125–$175. The new certificate lasts 180 days. The old certificate does not travel. Proprietary programs I originate — HomeSafe, Longbridge Platinum, Finance of America, Mutual of Omaha Secure Equity — still want occupancy on the new house.
The 2026 claim cap remains $1,249,125 (HUD Mortgagee Letter 2025-22). Origination on a new file is still capped at $6,000 under 24 CFR 206.31.
Who should not keep drawing after the furniture is gone?
This path does not help a household that wants the line of credit as a portable ATM. Occupancy is the collateral’s job. I work with multiple lenders. None of them waive 24 CFR 206.39 because Oregon is pretty.
It does not help someone who will “come back for Christmas” and call that principal residence. Mortgagee Letter 2023-23 is not a holiday test.
If Gita keeps Chico as home and visits Oregon, she reports long absences and certifies. If she moves, she pays the loan off through a sale or a wire. Heirs are not this page until she dies. While she lives, 24 CFR 206.125(a)(2)(i) is not the keep rule yet — 24 CFR 206.27 is the due rule. Tell the servicer the truth. Then pick sell, pay, or stay.