Mortgage and moving at 55 years

Notebook

Can someone tell me the maximum age that you can apply for mortgage.
My sister has about £50,000 equity in the house and £10,000 cash.
I hope she has is far too big for her and is looking to sell up.
If you wouldn’t be able to get a mortgage as she is 55 years of age now, would it be possible for her to putting that money as a deposit and then possibly go interest only on the remaining balance?
Thanks

Richard_Pia

55 years is certainly young enough to get a mortgage still. The main issue would be how long your sister would be able to take a mortgage over. Some lenders will allow a term up to age 75 provided she intends to work that long.

Interest only might be difficult to obtain unless she has an adequate repayment vehicle, such as an endowment, pension lump sum or other investments.

What would be the approximate purchase price?

Notebook

No idea at present. On the side of caution, if she got a mortgage and lost her job etc would she get any help with payments?

Richard_Pia

Some lenders will allow payment holidays for a limited period. If redundancy is a concern there are also insurance policies that can protect against this.

ACG

There is also Support for Mortgage Interest from the government, but the rules surrounding that changed recently and rather than it be a "benefit" as such, it is now a loan.

There are things like Redundancy insurance that will pay you an amount each month for 12-24 months (depending on the product) and income protection which will pay an income until you return to work or hit your retirement age.

Age is fine to get a Mortgage, we did a mortgage last year for someone who was 62, no issues getting it through. Getting it on interest only is more difficult than getting it on repayment now a days.

enthusiasticsaver

She can still get a mortgage but most lenders will not lend past 70 so she will be restricted to a 15 year term. Interest only mortgages are quite rightly not easily available now. I am not even sure how that would help her anyway. Presumably if she has £50k equity and £10k cash that is just £60k towards a smaller property. It depends on what area of the country she lives in but down here in the south west even a 1 bed flat costs around £150k. What is her income?

enthusiasticsaver

Does she have a pension? Some pensions are accessible from age 55 so using a PCLS towards her new home may avoid her getting such a large mortgage.

Richard_Pia

I'd have to disagree with the above poster, I know of several lenders that will allow a term up to age 75. There may be a feasibility check about the applicant's occupation and whether they continue to work up to that age. Manual jobs may struggle but anything office-based or non-manually intensive should be fine.