Has anyone done equity release?

Check on Martin Lewis website . He did a programme about it and only recommends it if you don’t have relatives to leave your inheritance to as it seems reasonable but the amount owed doubles very quickly and they triples.

Worth some careful research

my dil and his wife did it, then when they got older and wanted to move near to their dd, they were trapped because they would have had very little equity left to buy another smaller home. They are now truly suffering in a house that is far too big for them and there is no possibility of them moving. Nothing wtong with downsizing instead

I think theres a new one where you can pay the interest on the loan monthly and even lump sums off the loan .Our friend has an interest only mortgage coming to an end and she s considering equity release ,she's not using a financial advisor though she was recommended to use a good mortgage broker .

My parents did it in 2000. The took £25000. When we had to sell their house last year after Dad died we had to pay back over £82000! What was left had to go on Mams care home fees. I dont know if things have changed since they did it but they would have been shocked at how much was due.

It depends whether you want to pay off any interest or not. You can borrow around a third of the value of your home. So if you borrow £100k and repay nothing in say 20 years time you'll owe everything to the loan company but if you pay the interest each year which is around 5% you'll only owe what you borrowed. The best way to get the full facts is to contact one of the companies and get the full facts and decide for yourself.

In answer to a few posters above You can take equity release with you when you move as long as the value is there in the new property and you will be given a projection before you sign of exactly how much you will owe each year assuming you make no interest payments.

My mum and step father took out equity release. They were concerned about there being little or no inheritance for my brother, me and our step brother but we told them it wasn't about us when they'd gone, it was about them now.

My friend took £20K equity from her house when she retired 17 years ago to have some work done on her house. I couldn't for the life of me understand why she did it as she had enough in her pension 'lump sum' to cover it.
The debt is now over £60k and she bitterly regrets it.

If you have no one to leave the house to there is a case to liberate the cash and spend it, but a better way is to sell and move somewhere smaller.

At present the housing market is on hold, nobody can predict the future value of property, maybe some kind of order may return in 12 months. At present the best bet is take a mortgage holiday, maybe you have pension pots you can dip into, tough it out and cross bridges when you need to !.

If you can downsize the normal open market way you'll end up with more cash.

Then down the line you could do equity release on your smaller place if needed

You can pay the interest off - you do not have to roll it up.

You can transport it to another property unless the percentages are not right.

You dont to have pay it back unless one of you dies or you go into a care home!

I'm sure lots of people have said this above but I'm roasting a chicken and haven't read everything - sorry!!!

And, you can sometimes get fixed rates and rates are low!

Dont ring that man on Sky TV.

There are now some schemes where you can make voluntary interest payments (fixed interest) and take holidays when you want to. You can also transfer the amount to any new property you may move to.

If you look for Lifetime Mortgage, instead of Equity Release, you should find some info on the ones where you pay back interest so that the debt doesn't increase.

Thanks everyone.
Yes, I guess it all depends on whether you’re worried about leaving the children anything ( & whether they’re expecting an inheritance! )
Lots to think about.

We have an interest only mortgage, quite a large amount (second marriage, ex dh didn't play fair

Would love to just stay in this house, no need to leave anything, as ds1 inherited a very considerable amount from my mother! Enough to buy 2 houses, plus investment etc!

If there was a way to pay off the mortgage, stay here until whenever.............

It is daylight robbery.
I have had a complete nightmare dealing with my Mothers equity release company.
Be very aware that if in my mothers case you have to go in to a home and the property had to be sold the company can take over the property.

It isnt daylight robbery now!!

Equity release has changed and it's not a rip off, everything is set out for you to clearly understand exactly what you are getting into. It may well have not been a great thing in the past but these days it's fair and above board. Equity release and lifetime mortgages are the same thing these days.

I don't know anything about them from experience, but what strikes me about the adverts (the ones with Carol Vorderman in them) is that they always seem to recommend that you do home improvements with the money. As these will increase the value of your house, aren't you in effect borrowing money to increase the amount that goes to the loan company in the end?

Suppose you borrow £100k (for round figures) and that is 50% of the value of your home, which is worth £200k. If you then use £50k of that to get a conservatory and a new kitchen/bathroom that collectively increase the value to £350k, then instead of owing £100k, you now owe £175k (as the company owns half of the value of your house) plus you have been making payments on the loan, or accruing interest.

If I've got that right, they are even more expensive than they seem.

No, you owe what you borrowed plus any interest if you dont pay any.

You owe an amount not a percentage.

It's not always easy to downsize and gave funds over. I would like to downsize but smaller properties are in such demand especially in a good area, that they are more expensive than my family home. Really research equity release as there are a lot of horror stories. Could you get a loan using your property as security. Obviously wouldn't be a long term answer but may help in the short term if you feel you will have an income later on.

We took out a Lifetime Mortgage with Godiva in 2010, and I have never regretted anything more! Firstly their interest rate remains fixed, so that even when interest rates go down dramatically, theirs remains at 6%. Our idea was of reducing the value, and therefore IHT in the future, for our two children, and in the meantime getting stuff done and maybe grabbing some interesting holidays en route. We had, at the time, cleared our mortgage.

We got the roof fixed, but that was it, as my husband died in 2013, and since then I've been in no mood to holiday. At the time, the future seemed like a long way away, and the plan was recommended from a good friend we trusted. It's now 2020, and I'm thinking of selling/downsizing, so need every penny this house might bring, but that money is currently bleeding away - what a nice little earner it's been for these sharks. I certainly didn't go for the complete amount they kept offering me, which was a lot! Avoid these creatures like the plague.

We took out equity release, then my husband died and I had to downsize. In two years I owed £20,000 in interest, and would owe another £10,000 if I waited two month's longer to pay it off. When I sold my house I paid off the £20,000. I wouldn't recommend doing equity release unless you have no other choice.