Selling a house to free up equity

tishelsel

I am 74 and my wife is 67, we have a 10,000 mortgage on a house worth 80,000 and savings of around 20,000. We would like to sell our house to free up the equity to allow us to spend more time with our grandchildren who live abroad and also have a better standard of living whilst we are still able to enjoy our lives. Our state pensions is basic but sufficient to pay for the normal day to day things we need but not enough to cover rent as well. Does anyone know if we will be able to claim housing benefit to help with our rent once our savings have gone as they will not last as long as us...... Hopefully

PasturesNew

If you've ripped through £90k over one year, they'd laugh in your face.
If you've ripped through £90k over 10-15 years, they'd pay.
Where the line is between the two would be variable.

How long do you think it'd last?

Pixie5740

You'll have not far off £90k in savings. That should cover your rent for a good while. You'll only be eligible for housing benefit when your savings dwindle to £16k or less. Don't think about deliberately depriving yourself of your savings as if you give your money away you won't be eligible to claim housing benefit.

Cheeky_Monkey

You say your state pensions would not be enough to pay your rent as well as day to day living expenses so what, may I ask, will you be spending your approx. £90k on?

Hoploz

Maybe you could sell up and buy a retirement flat, and have some cash left over to use?

I would think you might have been wise to clear the last little bit of mortgage in cash before now as you have enough to cover it and you've been paying interest all these years!

You will only get benefits if you do not have enough to live on, which you do as you were good enough to own property.

As an alternative you could sell up and rent a retirement property instead. But how would you spend all that cash?!