What Happens at the End of a Home Equity Agreement

Updated August 14, 2026. Quick answer: the term is not ten years for everybody — the five providers whose own documents were read for this page run terms of 10 years, up to 15, and 30. At the end of it the whole settlement falls due, and only one of the five publishes a right to pay it down in instalments. Nobody guarantees you the refinance that most of this is quietly built on, and one provider says so in writing. What the deal costs annualised is on the true-cost page; this page is about the day it comes due.

The term is not ten years for everybody

Every row below is the provider’s own published term, read from its own site. Three different lengths are being sold under one product name, and the length changes the bill more than anything else on the page.

Hometap states the length plainly: “The effective period of a Hometap Investment is 10 years. You can either buy out our Investment with savings, take out a home equity (or other) loan, or sell your house during the effective period. We call this settling the Investment.” — Hometap, Frequently Asked Questions. Point’s is three times that: “The term is 30 years. Point will place a lien on your home to secure performance of the underlying agreement. There are no monthly payments or interest accrual.” — Point, How the HEI Works. Aspire’s sits between them, and its own wording puts a ceiling rather than a date on it: “At the end of the agreement – up to 15 years after the agreement is signed – the ending value of your home would be determined by the sale price or, if you refinance and/or buy out the agreement, by an independent 3rd party valuation.”

Settlement is one payment, and the wording is not soft

The end of the term is not a renewal date and not a conversation. It is a day on which a number falls due in full.

“You’ll need to repay your HEI in one lump sum. Homeowners typically do this through a home sale, a cash-out refinance, or another source of funds.” — Point, How the HEI Works

Unison describes the same event as a settlement against an agreed value: “When you sell, reach the end of the 30 year term, or end the agreement early, we’ll establish an Ending Agreed Value (typically, the sale price). At settlement, you’ll return the Initial Payment, plus (or minus) Unison’s Investor Percentage on the difference between the Original Agreed Value and the Ending Agreed Value.” — Unison FAQ, how an agreement ends. Hometap calls the whole operation “settling the Investment” and names the three ways to do it — savings, a loan, or selling the house.

One provider will take it in pieces, and it is worth knowing which

Point states the single payment expressly. The other three publish no partial right at all — which is not the same as refusing one, and is recorded here as silence. Unlock is the exception, and it publishes the right rather than leaving it to a conversation:

“You can sell your home or buy out Unlock at any time, and you can even buy out Unlock in partial payments whenever you want over the term. If you do not sell your home or buy out Unlock by the end of the term (typically 10 years), then you will need to settle up with us at that time by either selling your home or buying us out.” — Unlock, Frequently Asked Questions

That is the single most useful sentence in the five sets of terms, because it converts a cliff into a slope. It is also the only one of its kind found here, which makes it worth asking any provider for in writing before signing: a right that is not published is one you would be relying on somebody to grant you on the day you have least leverage.

What happens if the term ends and you cannot settle

This is the question the category is worst at answering. Only one provider read states the consequence in its own published terms, and it is worth reading twice:

“You may choose to settle the Investment at any time during the term without incurring any penalties by exercising an Owner Repurchase. If you do not settle the HEI by the expiration of the term, your Hometap HEI provider may exercise its right to acquire a percent ownership interest in the property and then work with you to sell the property.” — Hometap, Legal

Two things in that sentence matter. The first is that the exit is a sale of the house, not a payment plan. The second is the mechanism — acquiring an ownership interest and then working with you to sell — which is not a foreclosure and is not described as one. The other four providers do not publish what happens at that point anywhere this build could reach, which is stated below as a gap rather than filled in from somebody else’s summary.

The exit everybody assumes, and the one provider honest about it

Both of the settlement routes that keep the house — savings or a new loan — assume a lender will advance you the money on the day. Point names the refinance as the usual route. Unison names it too, and then says the thing the rest of the category does not:

“If you still own your home at the end of three decades, you will need to either buy us out or sell your home. In some cases, it might be possible to refinance your home to buy out Unison’s investment, but we can’t guarantee this option will be available.” — Unison FAQ, still in my home after 30 years

An agreement written for thirty years is settled by a mortgage that has to be underwritten on the day it falls due, at whatever age, income and rate you have then. That is not a criticism of the product; it is the part of it that is not inside the contract, and the reader should price it as a risk rather than a plan.

Leaving early is the expensive end, not the cheap one

Start with the shape that has no discount and no multiplier, because it isolates the term. A $500,000 home, $50,000 of cash, a share equal to the cash as a percentage of value, and 3.0% a year:

Read the last two columns against each other. The bill nearly doubles between a ten-year term and a thirty-year one — $67,196 against $121,363 — while the annualised cost does not move at all. On this shape it is 3.00% at every term, because it is simply the rate the house grew at. The term does not change the rate. It changes the size of the cheque.

Now add the one thing the marketing does not lead with. Unison publishes a 5.0% risk adjustment to the starting value and a share that is four times the percentage invested, so the same $50,000 on the same house buys 40% of every dollar of gain measured from a line below where the house actually stood:

The annualised column runs the wrong way round from a loan. A mortgage costs the same rate in year three as in year thirty; this costs 16.25% if you leave at three years and 6.65% if you run it to term, because the discount is a fixed toll that gets spread over more years the longer you stay. An early exit is the expensive end of one of these, and the industry knows it — which is exactly what Aspire’s own cap is shaped like: “Additionally, to provide you with protection, the amount due to Aspire is limited to a maximum annual return (compounding monthly) of 12% if the agreement terminates in the first 3 years, up to a maximum of 18% if the agreement terminates in year 4 or later.” — Aspire, FAQs. A cap that is lower in the first three years is a cap written for the years when the cost runs hottest.

The first five years can have rules of their own

Unison publishes a restriction period, and its effect is not a fee. It is a floor under the value the settlement is computed from:

“In the case you wish to move in the first five years, the transaction would proceed as usual except if the home’s value has gone down. During the restriction period, Unison does not share in a decrease of value – meaning the Ending Agreed Value for your property will be at least equal to the Original Appraised Property Value, even if your property value has decreased since the start of your agreement.” — Unison FAQ, the restriction period

Price it. The same $500,000 house, the same $50,000, an exit at three years in a market that has fallen 3.0% a year — so the house is worth $456,336. With the floor, the settlement is computed as though the house never moved and comes to $60,000. Without it, the same arithmetic on the same fall gives $42,535. The restriction period is worth $17,465 to the provider on this one exit, and the homeowner pays it at the moment a falling market is why they are leaving.

There is a second version of the same asymmetry that runs for the whole term, not just five years, and it attaches to the exit that keeps the house: “Then you’ll pay us the same amount you would have paid if you had simply sold your home for its appraised value. The biggest difference is that Unison will not share in any loss in your home’s value if you choose to buy us out.” — Unison FAQ, buying out the investment. Selling can share a loss; buying out cannot. The route that lets you stay is the route with no downside protection in it.

What we could not establish, and are not going to invent

• Four of five providers do not publish what happens if the term expires unsettled. Only Hometap’s legal page states the consequence. The others were read and are silent; that silence is not evidence that nothing happens.
• Point’s starting-value discount is not a number anywhere. Its own words are “Your appreciation starting value will be a majority percentage of this appraised value.” — and the difference between 51% and 99% of the appraisal is most of the cost of the deal. The tables above therefore do not model Point.
• The share percentages are not published by Hometap or Unlock (they are set per deal), so the share in every table above is a stated assumption, not any provider’s term. Move it in the calculator.
• No contract was read, only published terms and FAQs. A signed agreement may say more than a website does, and on the questions this page is about it very likely does.
• The appreciation rate is an assumption, not a forecast. The calculator exists so you can put your own in, including a negative one.
• No court has decided what these agreements are. This page describes published terms; it does not predict how any of them would be enforced.

Two live pages carry the rest of this: what one of these costs annualised is on what a home equity agreement really costs, with the arithmetic in the calculator, and how the product compares with the two borrowing routes is on the three-way comparison.

Sources

Every figure on this page is computed from the text quoted below. Each row links the document it was read from.

General consumer information, not financial, tax or legal advice. Rules and provider terms are as published by the cited source on 2026-08-14 and change without notice; your own circumstances govern.