Buying a property in later life

Savvy_Sue

carefullycautious wrote: »

Whoops sorry about the 'later in life remark' in my defense I meant later that people usually buy their first property.

:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

seven-day-weekend

We bought our house in the UK in 1976 when we were in our mid-twenties (and still have it , we are living in it at the moment) Paid for in the mid 1990s.

We bought our house in Spain in 2003 when we were in our mid-50s.
We paid cash for this (combination of proceeds of inheritance and pension lump sum) .

However we couldn't afford to actually move to Spain AND keep our UK house (insurance, Council tax etc). Luckily we have an adult son who lives in it with a lodger and their rent more than covers the expenses.

So , start again in your 50s? Quite possible with a bit of creative thinking!

Pobby

I am just thinking re retirement benefits. Now I am no expert but as I understand it, should you be renting with a large sum of money in the bank, £16,000 and above, you will not get pension tax credit, meaning you will have to pay all or some of the rent plus community charge. I stand to be corrected.

seven-day-weekend

You are correct to a large extent Pobby, although for most people the more your capital reduces below £16000, the more rent and council tax benefit you will be entitled to.

Once it gets below £6000 (rising, I think, next April to £8,000), you will be entitled to full Housing and Council Tax Benefit.

You do not have to be in receipt of Pension Credit to get these Benefits, it is calculated purely on income, although if you are on Guaranteed Pension Credit it passports you to those Benefits, regardless of savings..

I think this is correct. Complicated, isn't it???

[Deleted User]

Don`t hesitate cc, go for it. There is nothing like your own 4 walls and the security it gives you. You are both quite a few years younger than dh and I and we moved to a brand new town house 5 years ago at age 57 and 56. We LOVE the steep stairs, we get some ambient exercise and coming down is good for bone building. Re the future, well there are always stairlifts

We live a mile from trains, and shops and half a mile from public buses and we have good company here as we have people around but there is an unspoken etiquette and we all respect each otheres privacy. We are leasehold and we aren`t surrounded by children although we residents are of mixed ages and there are now 2 babies, although most are 40s and over

When we are in our 80`s then it may be time to rent an appartment, who knows but then it will only be to release money for us to go on holidays, fund a cleaner etc

edit: being a new house, our energy bills are low, approx 720 for a whole year and we are on a water meter at £23 per month. Window cleaning, security, repairs and gardening on about 20 acres are included in the leasehold charge

carefullycautious

OOOh kittie sounds lovely whereabouts are you?

Jennifer_Jane

Pssst wrote: »

JJ,could you tell us more about securing a mortgage past retirement age please? I just thought that the max period would be retirement age?

Sorry to have come back to this so much later! Actually I didn't get the mortgage past retirement - I'm still plodding on - but due to officially retire from full-time work on 24th August this year (am 62 now). Repayment mortgages are usually taken up to retirement age (but no reason I think why it shouldn't be longer), but interest-only mortgages don't have a set term.

You have raised a good question, however. Is there any kind of age-limit whether official or unofficial on starting a mortgage?

Anyway, wonder if the OP would like to let us know whether a decision has been made or not, and where and when they are buying - if that's the decision.

Personally, I am planning to sell and rent for a bit to check out a new area to move to, and the idea of renting is to me, very scary (the cost of renting vs the virtual non-cost of buying!).

Would love to hear how Carefully Cautious got on.

Jen
x

PS - didn't mean to insinuate that the boiler was covered by Contents insurance, what I meant was that when I took out that insurance, they had a joined but separate cover for such things.

CFC

No there isn't, when you take the mortgage out they do not worry if it goes beyond official retirement age.

Jennifer_Jane

CFC wrote: »

No there isn't, when you take the mortgage out they do not worry if it goes beyond official retirement age.

Is there some kind of point when you cannot START a mortgage once you're retired.

(We know you can go past retirement with a mortgage - see my two previous posts on this thread).

Thanks
Jen
x

Errata

I guess if someone retired needed a mortgage to cover say 20% of the cost of a new property and they had an enormous private pension they'd be able to get one.
Houseowners who have retired can mortgage their property to release equity, so the principle is there.