Mortgage for Pensioner

AmandaJess

I cannot find anything in any forum about re-mortgaging for Pensioners?  We have a Teacher's Pension and a Private Pension; A cast iron income and good equity in our home: an existing mortgage of £120,000. the house is worth around £525,000.  This mortgage is due to be renewed in the spring (its not a repayment mortgage).  We cannot find another  Mortgage company that offers us a choice?

MovingForwards

There are lenders who lend to people in retirement, I'm sure I read recently one of the brokers had a client's mortgage got to 90 years old.

@Deleted_User is one of the resident brokers on MSE and quite frequently posts about older clients and getting them a mortgage.

[Deleted User]

Thanks, 

A lot of these discussions comes down to what your plans are for the future and what your intentions are for the property.   Do you want to remain there until you die? Do you want to sell? Do you want to remain there and want to pay the mortgage off to benefit any children? 

There are lenders for most of these situations:

1.  If you want to remain on interest only until you die then Retirement Interest Only is available (as is equity release but to be fair im not qualified in that).   That would allow you to have an interest only mortgage until the death of the 2nd borrower and then the property is sold and the debt cleared.  This in theory protects any equity you have in the property.   The downside with these is that its harder to do a joint mortgage than it is a sole one as the assessment has got to be on the income of the lowest earning applicant (so it remains affordable after death of either party).   It can sometimes get a decent case thrown out on affordability. 

2.  A normal term mortgage over a longer period of time.   I dont know your age but as long as you have got a proveable income then there are lenders out there who will look at a case. I had a client who wanted to pay the mortgage down but couldnt afford to do it in the 4 years left on the existing mortgage. So we pushed it out to a 11 year mortgage, took the client to mid 80's but it was affordable and it was her priority to pay the debt so it worked for her.   

3. Otherwise you might find a lender able to do interest only over a specific term (maybe to 85 at most without checking) and would be appropriate if you couldn't pass affordability on Retirement Interest Only and you intended to downsize at some point before the mortgage finished with enough equity to buy outright

5.  Or there is equity release which is a lot more flexible than it ever used to be but i dont know enough to give you the ins and outs.   

There may be options for you so best speak to a broker but my over riding advice would be to not do something that delays the inevitable.   If you just stick another 5 years on to an interest only mortgage you will be right back where you started but 5 years older.   Try think what the overall goal is and get a mortgage that is fit for that purpose