Getting a mortgage that expires after 75 years of age

Lettis

I will be 71 years old this May. My wife will be 69 years old next month. We own our house, valued over optimistically at about £800,000 and over cautiously at about £700,000. We have lived here for 20 years.
We currently have a Santander interest only mortgage which tracks at 0.75% above base rates (so has been at 1.25% for a while). The mortgage was a 15 year term and expires in May 2016. It is a flexible mortgage from the perspective that the interest is offset against a mortgage savings rate. The Mortgage is £312,000. The mortgage savings are currently £234,000. Thus the net mortgage outstanding is currently £78,000. We are both retired, however the mortgage payments are not a problem and we continue to reduce the balance at a rapid pace. If nothing changed it is likely that the mortgage would be fully paid off within 5 years.
We are looking to downsize and last summer we had the house on the market at optimistic rates, but are in no real rush and want to wait for a good price on the sale of the house. We expect to be listing the house again in the next month or so. Again we are in no rush to sell, except for the nagging concern that this is the last summer we will be able to offer the house for sale before the mortgage term expires.
We view our situation (perfect credit record, no missed mortgage payments in 14 years with current lender and LTV of 10-11%) as being as near to no risk for a lender as they could possibly dream of! However, in a quick scout around, it appears that virtually no one will give us a mortgage that expires beyond our 70th or 75th birthdays, and it is looking likely exceedingly difficult for us to get a new mortgage beyond 2016 - certainly one that is as competitive as our needs suggest.
So a few questions:
1) How "desperate" should we be to sell our house this summer? (i.e. what happens in May 2016 if we still have the house, an outstanding balance on our mortgage of, say, £70,000 - less than 10% of value - and are unable to remortgage?)
2) Should I be looking to remortgage now, or what and see if we sell in the next 6 months or so?
3) What are my best options for remortgaging if I do try and do it now? How flexible are the banks with age - will they look at circumstances, or is it just a blanket ban?
4) Any other options you believe I should be considering?
5) Not a question - but just thanks to anyone who has bothered to read this far. I thank you!

JournalGirl

I saw an article at the weekend - think it might have been about Yorkshire Bank??? - about a new mortgage where they would individually underwrite rather than the 'computer says no' approach. It was talking about pensions being a more stable income than salary. I'll try and find the article

Senior_Paper_Monitor

Depending upon your pension income (which you don't mention) should be do-able (but not at the rates you are currently enjoying !!)


An experienced broker should be able to assist - as thiscertainly won't be a 'high street job'.

jackomdj

Gary paytons post is not relevant and it is a first time post so I have pressed the spam button.