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Bar News - June 21, 2002 NHBA CLE Brings New Attention to Divorced Borrower Loan Plan A MARCH 22 NHBA CLE titled "Financial Issues in Divorce Practice" brought to the attention of many NH Bar members a little-known program named in honor of the late attorney Philip S. Rader that looks to help individuals keep a home in the wake of divorce. The New Hampshire Housing Finance Authority's Philip S. Rader Divorced Borrower Initiative helps individuals in the process of divorcing to either retain the marital home or purchase a new one. Couples facing divorce are often confronted by the reality that their combined income was sufficient to purchase a single-family home, but their separate incomes are insufficient to continue to maintain that home or purchase a new one. The NHHFA initiative named in honor of Rader provides a viable alternative for divorced individuals who may not be able to qualify for private financing to purchase or refinance the home. Under the initiative, any borrower seeking to refinance a principal residence must be doing so relative to a divorce agreement or court order and the property must be the primary residence of at least one dependent child of the borrower. The annual income of the borrower also must be at or below the maximum limits established by the NHHFA. The initiative was established in early 1999, according to Ellie Gordon, Rader's widow, who is an attorney with Cooper, Deans & Cargill in North Conway and a member of the NHHFA. Gordon said that shortly after she was nominated by Gov. Shaheen to serve on the board of the NHHFA, Rader, an attorney with Cooper, Deans & Cargill who did a lot of divorce work, proposed to her the idea for the program to help divorced individuals keep the marital home. "He said, 'I have this great idea: When people get divorced and can't afford to keep the house, they have to move. Their kids' lives are turned upside down; the kids have to relocate to new schools. There should be a program to refinance the mortgages so they could stay after divorce,'" according to Gordon. Gordon brought the idea to the NHHFA board, which saw the value of and started such an initiative. After Rader's death in October 1999, Gordon proposed that the Divorced Borrower Initiative be named in her late husband's honor, since it was his idea. Philip S. Rader was a practitioner in Rochester and then in North Conway. He was an outstanding participant in the Bar's Pro Bono program and had been very active in community activities in Rochester and the Mount Washington Valley. In 2000, he was posthumously awarded the L. Jonathan Ross Pro Bono Award for Carroll County. Rader was born in Columbia, South Carolina, and moved to New Hampshire to practice law. He joined the Cooper, Deans & Cargill firm in 1997. He died on October 18, 1999, at the age of 47. The Philip S. Rader Divorced Borrower Initiative was recently featured in the May 3-6 issue of New Hampshire Business Review. Gordon said that she believes attorneys heard about the little-known program through the Divorce Financials CLE and that word is now spreading about the initiative. In FY 2001, the NH Housing Finance Authority helped 25 low-income divorced spouses secure low-interest loans to refinance their homes. The NHHFA's goal was to close on 35 such loans in FY 2002; year-end statistics were not yet available at press time as the fiscal year was coming to a close. Gordon said she is glad the program is getting new attention because she sees it helping divorced individuals and their children. "It's really helping people, which is wonderful," she said. For more information about the Philip S. Rader Divorced Borrower Initiative, contact the NH Housing Finance Authority at 472-8623.
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