Equity Release...or not?

Ellie_T

Hi. This is my first post on here and if this is in the wrong place, then please feel free to move it! To be honest, I wasn't entirely sure where it should go.


I'm posting on here in the hopes that someone else has either been through or has heard of something similar happening. Long story short ( I hope) - a few years ago, at the age of 57, I tried to obtain equity release on my house. I realised at the time that I was at the earlier part of the age range, but thought that, as the companies that I looked at quoted "55 and over" it would be okay. I went with an independant financial adviser that I found, and he put me in contact with Aviva. Aviva then took six months to make it obvious that they weren't interested in giving me equity release and I gave up. About six months ago, I decided to try again. I have debt (which I'm very slowly paying off) accrued because I tried to start a small business which failed. Equity release would enable me to pay off the debt and do some much needed work to my house.

So, as I say, I decided to try again and got in touch with a company based down in Plymouth who had excellent reviews. They put me in touch with an adviser who was relatively local to me and apart from a small, false start, everything appeared to be going well. He found a company, Just Retirement, who would release the amount of equity I needed, and I had a survey done. All this had so far taken about four months. The surveyor eventually came out, did a 20 minute survey, and went back and wrote his report stating that he recommended a £10,000 retention. This apparently was outside of Just Retirement's lending criteria and my adviser e-mailed me to say that he would continue to look. This was six weeks ago. I have e-mailed him asking for an update but so far all I've had back is that he had been away for a "few days" (!) and would be in touch soon. I should also add that I have e-mailed him half a dozen times over the past weeks.

This is now, once again, a six month long process and although I keep trying to get an answer, I'm not having any luck.
Has anyone else had this happen to them? I do live on an island, off the northwest coast of Scotland and my house is 150 years old. I have no idea if either of these facts would be relevant but it seems to me that equity release is almost impossible to obtain if you're a) not living on the mainland and b) you're not in your 70's.
Sorry for the long post - but I'd really appreciate anyone's comments. I'm really very bewildered by this whole lack of progress.
Many thanks.

BrassicWoman

How easy is it to sell a 150 year old house, on an island (so few services) which needs repairs? That impacts ER availability.



What is your house worth in its current state?


Is a nice clean downsizing an option?

badmemory

The problem I think you will find with equity release, they aren't really interested in lending the money, just in how quickly they will get it back once you've had to leave the property.


Perhaps though I should declare an interest. My property has recently been devalued by about £20k by a nearby property being sold by the equity release company at auction for a good £30K less than it was worth, heirs get nothing but they got their money back.


I didn't think it was possible to reduce a property's value so much so easily. Then I talked to my sister whose property still hasn't caught up to what would be its value. And why? Because someone bought next door & then sold it to his son at half the price.


Is there no way you can take out one of the new mortgages which go to a much higher age? Apart from anything else the interest rate should be much lower.

System

badmemory wrote: »

My property has recently been devalued by about £20k by a nearby property being sold by the equity release company at auction for a good £30K less than it was worth

No it hasn't.

Ellie_T

Brassicwoman - the house sold quite quickly last year. I put it on the market and it went within three weeks at the asking price. The house currently is valued at 170K.
Downsizing is certainly an option and is something I'll be looking into in the next year or so. Thank you for your reply. :-)

Ellie_T

Bad memory - I think you might have hit the nail on the head. I'm sorry you've had such a negative experience. It certainly is a minefield.


I did ask the financial adviser about re-mortgaging but he was not encouraging given my age (59) and debt.
Thank you for the reply though.