Age Limits

varka

I would value advice from any professionals on this board please:

I am 58, retired, and currently have a relatively small mortgage on my house that I have lived in for 25 years. I have a good pension and want to re-mortgage to help out my family. My pension means I am able to get a mortgage in excess of the £110k I need - the house is worth over £320k at present. Initially, I want a fixed rate and interest only - I will be able to pay off the mortgage in a few years time from other sources. I have the following general questions:

Given my pension is for life (my wife gets 2/3 of it if I snuff it before her!) can I still apply for a long mortgage of, say, 20-25 years - or would I be "capped" to a particular age?

We wish to retain ownership of the house ( we are married but have the house registered as "tenants in common") - should I/can I go for a sole (on me) or joint mortgage? "Lifetime" mortgages and other seals seem to take away our ownership - are there any other deals that I may not have heard about? Would you ever advise someone to take Lifetime or the other deals?


I do not want to get any more specific on a public web site. I was going to trawl through t'internet for all the deals and work out for myself what mortgage to take, but having read Martin's article on advisors, am considering using professionals to help.

All comments gratefully received.

TIA

Leon_W

Hi varka

To take your points one by one.

1. "can I still apply for a long mortgage of, say, 20-25 years - or would I be "capped" to a particular age? " . This depends on the lender, some insist that the mortgage is paid off by retirement, say 65, but many lenders do not have an upper age limit. The view being that as long as you can afford the monthly payments then where is the problem ?. It's a bit ageist to say no, you can't have a mortgage because you are retired in my opinion. It's your money so do what you like with it. Retired applicants are generally easy to arrange mortgages for but it is knowing which lender to approach which can save a lot of wasted time. I would also get the longest term I possibly could as this would keep all the options open for as long as possible and with an interest only loan the term is pretty irrelevant anyway.

2. "We wish to retain ownership of the house" You will with a conventional mortgage. The mortgage will have to be a joint application as the house is registered as tenants in common. Obviously with a conventional mortgage you will be making a monthly mortgage payment (interest only is fine). With a Lifetime deal you do not make monthly payments but the interest is rolled up and the loan repaid on sale of the property. In my opinion a conventional mortgage would perhaps suit you better as you state that it could be repaid from other sources.

One thing that you should consider is how the mortgage would be paid if you died, could your wife afford it solely or would the property have to be sold and then downsize ?

Hope this helps.

Regards

Leon W

Mr_helpful

Should be easy. there are several mainstream lenders with no upper age limit