This is an interesting response.

I questioned your statement about the need for celebrities but Mr. Veale all but ignored that issue and questioned you about your statements in the last part of your comment. Your comment was pretty free wheeling.

In reading everything over, I really have little understanding why you said: “I really hope I am accused every day of keeping a senior in their home and out of a nursing home with the proceeds of a reverse mortgage. I would be smiling 24/7 and so would they!!!!” Did any actually accuse you of that? I think anyone would like that said about them unless it was somehow connected with fraud or is an excuse for false advertising.

It seems you will not answer two basic questions. Why is a reverse mortgage a complex financial planning tool and why it is OK to advertise that by using the home a senior can stay at home. I would like to know those answers myself. Are you talking about using the home as the security for a reverse mortgage? If so, that is a straightforward answer.

But this thing is certainly getting overheated. Maybe it is better that it ends here.

Have a great weekend.

I sincerely have no idea what teaching elder care or Medicare attorneys has to do with qualifying you to know about the difference between what is and is not a financial planning tool. I really do not know how teaching CFPs about reverse mortgages qualifies you as an authority on their engagements.

Even though I am nothing more than a CPA with a masters degree in taxation, a CSA, and a real estate broker does not mean I am a CFP even though their society has given me a testing date based solely on those qualifications. CFPs are required to go through a rigorous education program. CPAs with graduate degrees in taxation from recognized universities automatically qualify to sit for their exam. CFPs with graduate degrees in taxation do not automatically qualify to sit for the CPA exam due to the additional education CPAs must receive outside of financial matters.

When considering becoming a CFP, I started taking a review course. It became very apparent that anything a CFP could do, my CPA license already qualified me to do in California; so its value to me was marginal at best. In fact in California, much to my surprise I can do anything that a person with a Series 65 License can do.

In the review course one thing very clearly stood out and that was the similarity of the structure of CFP full financial planning engagements compared to that of a CPA. Such engagements can be broken down into six steps. The first step is to determine and establish an agreed engagement, including gaining an understanding of the client’s goals, objectives, and needs. The next is to gather and organize all relevant client data needed to perform the engagement. The third step is to develop the plan. Next the plan is reviewed with the client to ensure it meets the client’s goals, objectives, and needs. The next step is implementing the plan and the final step is to follow up to see how the plan is working.

There are many engagements that do not proceed past the fourth step. It is the process through the fourth step that is the actual financial planning portion. The only tools used in that process are software, photocopy machines, calculators, etc. No financial products are “tools” in that process. Where either you or dduck12 get that idea is not from any financial planning literature, I have ever read.

It is in the implementation stage that specific financial and insurance products become tools in the hands of competent financial planners. Up until then, they are nothing more than products under consideration.

I am student of finances and am willing to learn from those who better understand the process. So if you or dduck12 can describe how a reverse mortgage is a tool through the fourth step of a financial planning engagement, please do.