Yes, you can usually co-sign a HELOC for your mother, and once you do, the line reports on your credit like any other debt you owe. Finding the loan may take some shopping. HELOCs are portfolio loans, so each lender writes its own rules instead of following Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac. A borrower whose income is all Social Security but who has substantial equity is exactly the kind of file where lenders split. Some will decline. Enough calls usually finds a willing one. Two things to protect once you sign: - Your credit. If your mother misses a payment, the late payment lands on you. Co-signed family loans go sideways more often than anyone expects, so build in a safeguard that guarantees the payment gets made every month. - Your future buying power. If you plan to buy or refinance later, the HELOC payment counts in your debt-to-income ratio unless you can document the most recent 12 months of on-time payments made by your mother from an account you are not on. That 12-month standard is common across Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, FHA, and VA, and Fannie's automated underwriting can even exclude the debt on its own when 12 months of her payments show up in the data. Notice the tension between those two: paying the HELOC from an account you control protects your credit, but it keeps the debt in your DTI. If a purchase or refinance is anywhere on your horizon, set the payment up from her account on day one and keep the statements. That paper trail is what gets the debt excluded later.