Daily Telegraph says 1 in 4 Pensioners are millionaires

I know a lot pensioners and I am one myself and I don't know a single millionaire among them. Wonder where these stats came from?

The house we owned in London is currently worth about £1.3 million. However, we no longer live there, having moved to Suffolk and then to France. Our assets are now around £450k.

Friends and clients who live in London have homes worth over £1 million but they have owned these for many years. When bought they were in what were then cheap areas of South London. One or two have good pensions - govt. Many, my age are still working in their chosen fields - pottery, art etc. and have small employment pensions, plus the state.

Funnily enough some of their children - late 30s early 40s live in expensive houses £1 million or more. The daughter of one friend is just, at age 32, buying her first home in the home counties at a cost of £640k, without help from family.

I know quite a few millionaire pensioners in my home city. They would never admit it and live frugally, but I absolutely know they’ve hoarded money away all their lives. They own their houses, one used to rent out quite a few properties she owned too. They very often don’t share wealth, don’t buy essentials to donate to the food bank which is very likely how they have managed to hoard so much. One woman buys many clothes&coats at car boots, even though she could afford to have them hand made in Saville row.

I’d assume that only paid-off houses count, GrandtanteJE65, and presumably a good percentage of pensioners (I know not all) will have paid off their mortgages.

Of course an asset like a house is a very different thing from a lot of spare cash sitting in savings or investments.
As pps have said, a lot of older people are relatively asset-rich, while not having much in the way of dependable regular income.

homefarm

I wish!

I forgot to add that .

I wish!

Mr Dog and I both had professional jobs, paid into pensions and bought a house that cost a large chunk of our income because of the high interest rates that afflicted many in our generation.

The house was paid off a few years ago, but we are very far from being millionaires . We haven't inherited anything, and have had no windfalls. When we were finally able to save, interest rates were low, and I left work before pension age, as Mr Dog is older than me and we wanted some time together, which would have been hugely shortened had I waited for the increased SPA to kick in.

I don't know whether or not I know millionaires - people don't talk about their bank balances - but the people I know who seem the wealthiest are those who sold houses in London or the SE and were able to buy better ones outright over here, so all their salaries were disposable income. Some friends of ours did this in their 30s and have been comparatively rich all their working lives as a result. The impact on things like pensions and investments is obviously huge, too.

I don't think the 'divide' is generational so much as geographical; but it suits the government's narrative to present it as young versus old.

Well I know a hell of a lot more than 8 Pensioners and not a millionaire amongst them. Was this about UK or USA? Even so sounds like rubbish to me. Maybe 1 in 100.

I frankly do not think anyone should be classed as a millionaire if the only criteria for doing so is the fact that their house or houses are valued at that kind of money.

After all we all know that if you put your house up for sale now, you are not likely to be able to sell it for what it is actually valued at.

And what about mortgages? Unless they are paid off and you have no other loans in the property or debt of any kind, selling your house won't mean that a million £ suddenly appear in your bank balance and stay there very long.

If by "millionaire" a person whose disposable income is that amount of money annually, it would amaze me if any pensioners are in that bracket!

Our income is nowhere near that even if we added on the value of our house and its contents!

katy1950

What a load of rubbish they are obviously referring to the pensioners in the London areas . Definitely not in the northwest the telegraph are a very anti British newspaper who seem hell bent on blaming pensioners for all the problems in the world

I wouldn’t call the Telegraph anti-British - rather true-blue Tory, which does not typically go with anti British.

It’s not just London where house prices are ludicrous, BTW - other parts of the SE are not far off. A dd lives in Oxford where house prices are also daft. IIRC a report a while ago said that compared to average local incomes, Oxford house prices were the least affordable in the U.K.

I’d like to leave something to my children, but if either of us need care, that won’t happen. My dad always said we’d inherit (my sister and I) but now dad’s dead and mum’s in a care home so it won’t happen. Mind you their house was only worth a fraction of a million, nowhere even near a million. Anyway, it’s all going in care home fees, so dad’s wish won’t come true.

We sold our house in the London suburbs 16 years ago for just under £2m. We didn't buy it as an investment but as a home, though we were delighted to take the money. Out of that we bought our new house and helped 4 children buy their own homes. By the time this was done there was well under £1m and our share was invested in our new home.
Move on 15 years and we sold again for £2m but invested less than one third of this in our new downsized home. The rest has helped our children, now parents in their 30s, to move into family homes from their first places. Again we are no longer millionaires.
I know many others who've done what we have, moving downmarket as they get older.
This is a good move for many people who have valuable homes reducing Inheritance Tax whilst helping our family. If you don't do this you lose a huge chunk of your estate when you die - and we have the pleasure of seeing our family happy in their new homes.
By the time most of us eventually die our children are past the age when they need our wealth.

The only person I know who is a millionaire and no longer working is my sister– based on the 4 properties she and her DH owned but she does not live in the UK.

They live in a country which has no inheritance tax, no capital gains tax, no tax on savings so they should be able to pass all their wealth to their 3 children.

What a load of rubbish they are obviously referring to the pensioners in the London areas . Definitely not in the northwest the telegraph are a very anti British newspaper who seem hell bent on blaming pensioners for all the problems in the world

dlgcrclggran

May I suggest The Daily Telegraph need to learn to COUNT correctly

Why? The figures are from the ONS.

I know a few that are in the millionaire bracket with their home (s) and investments. They are as miserable as they come, never eat out or do anything that requires spending money beyond their bills and food. Not sure who they are leaving it all to but I know one old gentleman who's step-children are waiting to spend it.

Minerva

I have to live very frugally in a delapidated house which would probably make a million though other houses nearby where owners can afford the upkeep/have loft conversions, landscaped gardens etc, make a million and a half I am told. I worry about bills, only do the most essential repairs and haven’t had any kind of a holiday since 2012. On paper a millionnaire perhaps.

Sell!

Some people don't have that option.

Everyone's poor when they die - to be more precise, money isn't much good to them.

The people who will be poorer will be those who otherwise would have inherited.

We've just had my Mum's house valued and on paper, she will be a millionaire. However at £6500 per month for her care which will be secured on the house, she will be much poorer when she eventually dies. She has to have Nursing Care with her diabetes and Dementia but has the constitution of an ox so I think she will be paying for some years. She won't be a millionaire when she dies.

I have to live very frugally in a delapidated house which would probably make a million though other houses nearby where owners can afford the upkeep/have loft conversions, landscaped gardens etc, make a million and a half I am told. I worry about bills, only do the most essential repairs and haven’t had any kind of a holiday since 2012. On paper a millionnaire perhaps.

May I suggest The Daily Telegraph need to learn to COUNT correctly

Grumpa has the answer imo. My house is worth about a million due to location but I only have state and a fractional private pension

I am pretty sure that I don't know any millionaires. I know several at the other end of the scale, ie below the poverty line.

Well I don't know any Millionaires - Pensioners or otherwise.

Granted, I live in the North of Scotland, and not anywhere with very high value houses (though it's possible there are some here, of course).

sazz1 sounds like my step father, loathed by my mother. She worked full time with 4 children (I was the eldest). No washing machine, central heating or any help at all. They divorced as soon as she was able by law, to acquire a mortgage in her name. When he died he left my siblings (but not me) enough money for each of them to buy properties outright.