By Dave Devereaux
This past December proved to be very different for my brothers and me. We finally decided to sell my dad’s house three years after he died and to close a chapter in our personal histories there.
Dad opted for a reverse mortgage and it was a disappointment to the three of us, but I know his thinking was that without him or my mother, we would probably not want to live there since we all own our own homes. We wish he had asked us, however, because that could not have been farther from the truth.
I will implore anyone in the sunset of their lives to ask their kids if they want their childhood home versus getting involved with the reverse mortgage process. I feel as if we have been robbed of the opportunity to continue our legacy within that house and develop possible generational wealth as other ethnicities often do.
The moment they sign those documents and begin to pull money from the process, you have lost all your possible inheritance rights. Gone is the idea of handing it down to heirs. The only way is to see the process through and go and repurchase a home that has been bought and paid for by your parents already.
We were not angry with him, for surely the home was his to do as he pleased. He assumed that we would not want to live there and wanted to save us the responsibility of sorting through that process.
The three of us have hung out at the house over the past three-and-a-half years and each time it’s like a reset of memories and new ideas. We get along so well, we would all want to be there together. We left electricity, gas, water and cable on as if someone were there all the time.
When we moved the majority of the furniture out and put it in storage, my brother went back some months later and put some of the items back in the house. We all laughed about it and neither of us was mad. It was welcomed.
That house holds incredible memories. Located in East Texas where the family village concept is the norm, it is the backdrop of a successful middle-class black neighborhood. We have neighbors today who are more like aunts and uncles because they have been in our lives for decades. They still support us in our professional endeavors and never hesitate to tell us how proud they are that we three are steadfast in respecting our late parents and the connection to that community.
My youngest brother has even more connections to the community because unlike my middle brother and me, it is the only home he remembers us living in. The two of them both have had a particularly hard time letting go because they have been living so close to my parents for much longer than I. They were there for the Easter celebrations, birthdays and Juneteenth activities while I lived away in California.
My middle brother is the real genius in the family. He wore the reverse mortgage people down by constantly expressing our desire to control the property and sell when we wanted to. Of course, we were trying to rewrite the rules for our reasons of nostalgia. He befriended the representative and appealed to her sense of empathy and we were allowed to put the house up for sale and take whatever price beyond what my dad owed for ourselves.
That was not our initial intention, to be honest. We were hoping for a miracle and during the height of the COVID crisis thought that perhaps they would make exceptions. Wishful thinking. In the end, the mortgage company, after several requests and having to go into probate, forwarded a payoff amount and allowed for the sale.
We put the house on the market on December 24th and had several offers over asking on December 26th. We had already gone there and cleaned the house as if my mother was coming home from work to inspect. With the help of a childhood friend, now a realtor, she has guided us through the process.
We know the day it sells and closes will be a hard day to accept, but hopefully, another family can create some incredible memories in that house that one day their son, daughter, or grandkid writes about. Tyler, Texas is a wonderful community that fosters positive family values and ideals. Tyler fosters cultural awareness and respect for community unlike many Southern cities these days. We live with those lessons every day and forge on with the idea that community is necessary to develop a rich cultural foundation, guided by self-awareness, empathy and respect.
My greatest concern is my brothers. I pray that they will look at this as another chapter in our lives that is still being written. We have learned over the past 20 years to create new traditions and rituals and they are all done in honor of our parents who taught us that loss is not the end, but a chance for something different and new to be experienced.
While we still miss our mother who passed away in 2002 and our father who died in 2018, we never lose sight of the fact that nothing is forever but memories. In that house, so many warm and beautiful memories were made.
The reverse mortgage process is not all that they advertise it to be. It is convoluted and complicated, and somewhat unsympathetic to any heirs or family members who may have a connection to a home. It reminds me of the days when unscrupulous buyers took advantage of homeowners about to go into foreclosure. When an older person hears that their house can sustain them for years via a reverse mortgage, be leery. Know what your parent’s last wishes are for their property. As black people, we have not had as much experience in estate planning since the development of generational wealth is relatively new to our culture. Ask legal experts about the most prudent moves when the subject of wills versus trusts and reverse mortgages is discussed.
Though it is a sad chapter in our lives, we realize that it is time to move on and start making new memories. That is exactly what I can hear my mom and dad tell us.
UPDATE: The House sold with in a week of me completing this story.
