Quantcast
Menu

News

Nationwide will raise max mortgage lending age to 85

Christina Hoghton
Written By:
Christina Hoghton
Posted:
Updated:
09/05/2016

The building society has revised its criteria to give it the highest age threshold of any high street lender

Nationwide Building Society has announced that it plans to increase its maximum age for mortgage maturity from 75 to 85, to bring more flexibility and choice to older borrowers.

The lender says the move will give it the highest age threshold of any high street lender, and is just one of a series of enhancements the mutual is making to offer greater support to borrowers in retirement.

The revised criteria will be effective from July 2016.

What will change?

The criteria change will enable existing customers with retirement income to borrow up to the age of 80, for house purchase and further advances, with a maximum age at maturity of 85.

The option will be available on all standard Nationwide mortgage products up to 60% loan-to-value (LTV) and a maximum loan size of £150,000.

It is the latest in a series of measures from Nationwide to reflect changing customer needs as part of its commitment to review and update how it caters for borrowing into retirement. In February, Nationwide simplified its approach to assessing retirement income, and it now uses the customer’s anticipated retirement age rather than the state pension age, up to a maximum age of 70.

Henry Jordan, Nationwide head of mortgages, said: “We are taking a series of steps to meet a growing demand from customers to be able to borrow in later life. These customers are often asset rich, with significant equity in their home, and they wish to have the flexibility to borrow against it.

“Access to the mainstream market has been a challenge for older customers, resulting in their needs going unfulfilled. This measure helps to address these needs in a prudent, controlled manner.”