When NHS theatre practitioner Andy Payne lost his wife to cancer 18 years ago the devoted dad reduced his hours to look after their daughter. Eighteen years later when the term expired on his interest only mortgage he was 62-years-old and £40,000 short and worried about what might happen. However, Age Partnership arranged a lifetime mortgage from Pure Retirement, at 6.63%, in Nov 2023.

He said: “I became a single parent when my daughter was seven, so I had to reduce my hours drastically to look after her.

“Beth had just lost her mum, so I was determined that she was not going to lose me to work.

“My wife, Jackie, had a 10-year battle with cancer. I wasn’t going to pay for someone else to look after my daughter after everything she had been through.

“Subconsciously I knew there was a problem. The house was on an interest-only mortgage, but I just put my head in the sand.

“In the back of my mind I was hoping that I could take a lump sum from my NHS pension and that would be enough. It wasn’t.

“When the letter arrived telling me the mortgage term was coming to an end I thought: Ok I really have to deal with this now, I cannot put it off any longer.

“I had a few sleepless nights. I had real worries about it. I didn’t want to relocate or downsize.

“It sounds silly, but I didn’t want to put the cat through it. I could have moved if I had to but Milly is 17-years-old and I didn’t want to move her.

“It’s fair to say I was quite apprehensive about equity release. I didn’t know the detail and I took a fair amount of convincing.

“Pure Retirement were extremely patient. They were very clear about the costs and the early repayment charges, which are on a sliding scale.

“The whole process took quite a long time because I was waiting for the rules to change so I could take a lump sum from my pension and continue working.

“I took £83,000 from my pension but I needed another £40,000 to clear the mortgage.

“I talked to my daughter about it. She’s 25 now and off living her life in London. She has a great career and will stand on her own two feet.

“You need to go into this with your eyes open, fully informed.

“I remember when I signed the dotted line I thought ‘this rate isn’t great’ but it was not wildly different to a traditional mortgage, rates are higher now.

“I’ve chosen to pay off the interest and a little bit of the capital. I chose to pay the maximum amount, which is £333 a month. The interest is not that much, but I can choose to stop, which is important.

“I’m quite happy doing three days a week at work for now, but my daughter is all in favour of me giving up altogether.”

Andrew Morris senior equity release adviser at Age Partnership said: ‘‘Although interest rates are higher now compared to few years ago, the ability to make repayments has given customers the confidence to release funds from their property.

“The flexibility around repayments, means that clients really are in control of the money that they borrow.

“Repayments can be as little as £50 and can be made ad hoc or on a regular basis. I always encourage my clients to repay any small amount that they can.’’