Part-time assisted living does not automatically deny reverse mortgage eligibility when the house is still your principal residence. Jay Zayer, CRMP, is a reverse mortgage specialist at reversemortgage.coach. A Home Equity Conversion Mortgage requires occupancy under 24 CFR 206.39 at closing. Respite nights at a facility can be consistent with that. A facility that has become home cannot.
Suppose a borrower named Bryn, 81, in San Rafael, spends three nights a week at assisted living for help and four nights in the house she owns. If the house is still the principal residence — mail, insurance, furniture, and the certification she will sign — the file can be an occupancy conversation. If the room at the facility is already “home” and the house is a weekend visit, I will not originate.
A HECM remains FHA-insured. Assisted living is not a government occupancy waiver.
Does part-time facility use by itself fail 24 CFR 206.39?
It fails when the house is no longer the principal residence. Underwriters read utility use, license address, and how you describe a typical week. A San Rafael house with a dark meter and a facility as the mailing address is a vacant-home file. See vacant home.
This page is the split-week pattern. Nursing home is a full facility stay on an existing HECM. Conservatorship is court authority. Stay here when both places are in the weekly routine.
Leftover cash, if occupancy is true, still models in the mid-30s to low-50s of value after age and expected rate. I will not quote a live cell. Run the calculator only after the house is actually home.
How does the twelve-month rule interact with a new origination?
On an existing HECM, up to twelve consecutive months in a health-care facility can still satisfy principal-residence status under 24 CFR 206.3. Longer, with no other borrower occupying, can accelerate under 24 CFR 206.27(c)(2)(ii). That clock does not let me originate a new HECM on a house Bryn has already left. Origination occupancy is now.
Mortgagee Letter 2017-12 still charges 2.00% initial MIP of claim amount if a part-time-AL HECM closes. Annual MIP is 0.50% of outstanding balance. 2026 files still use the $1,249,125 cap in Mortgagee Letter 2025-22. Origination is still capped at $6,000 under 24 CFR 206.31. Paying that MIP on a house that will be empty in two months is a poor fee.
If residual income requires a LESA, that set-aside is still origination-only. Facility rent is not a LESA item. Residual income has to carry both the house charges and the facility bill, or the worksheet fails.
Counseling still costs $125–$175. The HUD certificate lasts 180 days. California Civil Code 1923.2(k) still adds seven days after counseling on Bryn’s file. Do not start that clock while the honest home is the facility.
What if a spouse still occupies every night?
Then that spouse may be the borrower if age, title, and occupancy line up. HUD uses the youngest borrower. Leaving Bryn off the note because she is in respite, while she remains an owner, can still require her signature under 24 CFR 206.35. See non-borrowing spouse if she is a spouse who will not occupy.
A second geography: a 77-year-old in Sun City, Arizona, whose “part-time” AL is already full-time with weekend visits home. Same 24 CFR 206.39 test. The weekly calendar, not the facility’s marketing, decides.
An adjustable HECM on a house that is still home still accrues at 1-month CMT plus lender margin. Expected rate still rounds to 0.125% under 24 CFR 206.3.
Jay still quotes about 30 days on a complete refinance after occupancy is true, not while the facility is already home.
Who should not originate as a way to keep a house they have already left?
This path does not help a household that wants HECM cash to pay the facility while the house sits empty. I will not. See nursing home for the existing-loan clock.
Heirs who later keep a house that closed while it was still home repay the outstanding loan balance under 24 CFR 206.125(a)(2)(i). Part-time AL does not rewrite that subsection.
I work with multiple lenders. I will originate when the house is still home. I will turn away a facility-first calendar whose owner wanted FHA on an emptying house.
Can I originate during a 30-day respite stay that has an end date?
Only if the San Rafael house is still Bryn’s principal residence and she will occupy at closing. A calendar that already shows the facility as home, with weekend visits to an emptying house, is a vacant-home fail. The twelve-month health-care clock in 24 CFR 206.3 is an existing-loan rule. It does not let me originate a new HECM on a house she has already left.
Sun City, Arizona, “part-time” marketing is not occupancy. The weekly calendar decides. If a spouse occupies every night, that spouse may be the borrower when age, title, and occupancy line up. Leaving Bryn off the note while she remains an owner can still require her signature under 24 CFR 206.35. Facility rent is not a LESA item. Residual income has to carry both the house charges and the facility bill.