It’s legal for lenders to ask how old a loan applicant is, but they generally can’t use the information when deciding whether the mortgage is approved or rejected.

Q: My wife and I are both in our 70s, and we have started filling out an application for a small home-equity loan. The application specifically asks for our age, but we don’t think that it’s any of the bank’s business. We are also worried that they will discriminate against us simply because we are older than most borrowers. Is it legal for a lender to ask a borrower’s age?

A: There are no federal or state laws that prevent a bank from asking an applicant’s age or date of birth, but there are several laws that govern how such information can be used when determining the prospective borrower’s creditworthiness.

Under federal law, it’s illegal for a lender to flatly reject an application or lower the proposed loan amount based solely on the borrower’s age. Banks also must consider monthly Social Security checks as “income,” just as they would the salary of a younger applicant who is still working.

It’s also illegal for a lender to deny credit to borrowers whose age prevents them from obtaining a credit life insurance policy that would pay off the mortgage if the customer dies before the term of the loan is up. And, if the application is eventually granted, banks are prohibited from later closing the account or changing terms of the original loan agreement simply because the borrower reaches a particular age.

Lenders, though, usually are allowed to consider a borrower’s age if it could soon impact the person’s ability to pay the money back. For example, it’s generally OK for a bank to lower the amount of requested credit – or perhaps even reject the application altogether – if a 64-year-old who’s still working and makes a high salary will soon retire and then depend on much-lower Social Security checks to pay the monthly bills.

A few months ago, I replaced several of the traditional light bulbs in my home with those spiral compact fluorescent bulbs to reduce my energy bill. My monthly electric bill has dropped by about $15 or so, but I am not happy because the fluorescents give off a bluish glow instead of the bright-white my old bulbs did. Is there something wrong with my home’s electrical system?

There’s probably nothing wrong with your home’s electrical system. Instead, you likely purchased some of the cheaper compact fluorescent lights, commonly called CFLs, that many discount stores are now selling for 99 cents or less.

I had the same problem about a year ago, when I replaced all 14 of the old-style bulbs in my house with CFLs that I had purchased from a discount retailer. They weren’t nearly as bright as my old bulbs were, sending a freakish glow throughout the house.

Your best bet would be to replace your current CFLs with better ones that are available at most large home-improvement chains and local hardware stores. They may cost up to $7 each, but energy experts say they’ll last about 10 times longer than regular bulbs and will give you much better light. Each new CFL will also save you about $60 in electricity charges over the bulb’s lifetime.

A company that advertises on one of our local cable-TV channels claims that there is a lot of money that can be made by purchasing homes at “tax-deed sales,” even if the buyer has little or no cash for a down payment. Is this true? How do the sales work?

Tax-deed sales are usually conducted by either a local tax collector or assessor to collect money from homeowners who haven’t paid their property taxes. The homes are typically sold at an auction, and the initial bid is often only the amount needed to pay the back-taxes and related legal fees – an amount that is often just a few thousand dollars.

Buying a nice home for only a few thousand bucks sounds great, but novice investors rarely have such good fortune. That’s because, if there’s a mortgage on the house, the bank will almost certainly also be a bidder, and the offering price will soon escalate.