What options are available for people who want to raise money from their home in later life? In his latest Q&A, Mark Gregory helps a retired couple with this question
The Question
My husband and I had been looking into the possibility of remortgaging our home because we need to raise some money for urgent to repairs to our son’s house.
What mortgage options are available to us? I am 77 and my husband is 80 so we are not exactly mortgage material! We fully own our house outright, and it’s valued at £320,000. We don’t have any significant savings other than an emergency pot.
Mark’s Answer
Hello, and thank you for your question and I can confirm that you and your husband have several options to raise the capital you need to help your son.
Over the last few years, our advisers here at Equity Release Supermarket have been helping their customers transfer wealth to help loved one’s at a time when they most need capital, rather than waiting for an Inheritance in the long-term, and advice is the key to your enquiry.
This is because based on your age and property value you have several options to raise the capital you need, and one of our expert, friendly, whole of market advisers will talk to you and get to know exactly what you need, assess your personal situation and then make a recommendation without any obligation or initial charge on your behalf.
Only once you accept their recommendation and any application completes will you have to pay for their advice which they will explain in more detail.
Before you raise capital to gift to your son, it is essential that the advice does not impact on any state benefits you receive or may be entitled to, and again our experts will help you with this.
I can confirm that options available to you include retaining 100% ownership of your home and having access to an initial cash lump sum and a cash reserve facility to access further funds in the future.
You have the choice to make payments to service a loan, or make no payments at all, and let the loan increase with a fixed interest rate for the remainder of your life so you will know exactly what you owe at any time in the future.
As an example, based on your youngest age, a typical lifetime mortgage could release up to 48% of your property value which is circa £154,000. However, the higher the loan-to-value you take, the higher the interest rate becomes. This is where the expertise of your adviser who will help design your bespoke plan for your needs, to ensure you obtain the best deal available across the whole market.
Alternative options can include selling a share of your home with a home reversion plan, and in return you would receive a cash lump sum. However, as noted, rest assured that our advisers will guide and help you, and feel free to read our ‘Feefo’ customer feedback on the Equity Release Supermarket website to see what our customers say and feel about the advice process and the expert advice they received.
Meet our expert…
Mark Gregory, founder and CEO of Equity Release Supermarket, is here to answer your questions. Mark is an adviser himself with over 20 years equity release experience.
He launched Equity Release Supermarket 10 years ago and it has grown to become one of the UK’s leading equity release specialists.
Email kate.saines@emap.com to ask Mark a question
