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Showing posts from September, 2016

Social Security Changes Give More Way to Reverse Mortgages

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We heard it for sometime that changes to the Social Security program were coming, and those changes came on November 2015 in the form of the Bipartisan Budget Act .  Perhaps the most significant policy change is that of the "File and Suspend " claiming strategy in which under the new law if a person chooses to File and Suspend benefits, then that would also suspend benefit payments to anyone else who might be collecting on that person's account.  Previously, a spouse who had reached their Full Retirement Age was allowed to apply for Social Security benefits and immediately request that payments be suspended thus allowing his/her spouse to collect 50% of the worker's Full Retirement Age amount plus allow the worker to delay retirement credits for himself/herself until age 70 to request a lump sum repayment. In short,it was viewed by many as a loop hole in the system that allowed retirees to collect more from the Social Security program, and now that is no longer a str