Unlocking equity in house

neilf99

I am writing on behalf of my grandmother who is 82 years old. She has recently lost her husband and now lives in a bungalow on here own. The bungalow is all paid for but she is struggling to survive on the pension the govenment gives her. Is their any way of unlocking the equity in her home which is valued at £200,000.00.

AMILLIONDOLLARS

What about selling the house and moving into a warden /retirement flat, a company call Macarthy does them. I personally would not consider an equity release scheme, I was speaking with an Independent Financial Advisor about them last week on behalf of my parents and she was dead against, apparently she had done a couple and they did not work out. With the warden control enviroment, at least you know that someone would be keeping an eye on her when you were not around and she would still have her independence, while making new friends with the other residence, as well as have a sizeable nest egg that she can draw on for her future. why not go and have a look at a couple.

Here the link below:
http://www.mccarthyandstone.co.uk/

Good luck
AMD

Astaroth

The end cost will generally be lowest by moving to a lower cost place - obviously this has to be weighed against the stress of moving and how important "inheritance" is to your grandmother (mine felt that being able to leave something to her family was exceptionally important and so giving the house to a company to give her a bit more cash whilst she was alive was totally against her morals/ upbringing)

A_Nice_Englishman

I love the term "equity release". Basically it means 'taking out a mortgage'.

I agree with previous posters that downsizing seems the most appropriate way of dealing with this if the children and grandchildren are unable to help her out either financially or by doing jobs she has to pay people to do (gardening, housework, driving her to the shops etc).

Sheltered housing suits some people but not others. Most such developments have a guest flat that can be rented cheaply. I would she suggest she tries that for a couple fo weeks to see if sheltered hosuing suits her before committing herself.