{"id":20857,"date":"2018-11-20T14:53:17","date_gmt":"2018-11-20T13:53:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.propertysurveying.co.uk\/newsletter\/?page_id=20857"},"modified":"2018-11-22T12:23:45","modified_gmt":"2018-11-22T11:23:45","slug":"how-old-is-too-old-to-get-a-mortgage","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.propertysurveying.co.uk\/newsletter\/?page_id=20857","title":{"rendered":"How old is ‘too old’ to get a mortgage?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"RoofFirst time buyers aren’t the only group to struggle to find a mortgage – think mature first time buyers or those renegotiating a mortgage to improve a current deal or moving house, perhaps to downsize, and the estimated 1.9 million people with an interest only mortgage due for final payment.<\/p>\n

It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s an ‘age old’ question and one which can throw borrowers into a panic. Simply being able to afford mortgage payments is no longer sufficient in itself to get or renegotiate a mortgage.<\/p>\n

Mortgage lenders cannot technically discriminate on the grounds of a borrower\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s age but they must ensure that you can pay the debt off in full.\u00c2\u00a0A 35 year old in full time work has a better chance of switching to an affordable repayment mortgage than a 70 year old, whose repayments would be too high to be affordable.<\/p>\n

The National Consumer Credit Protection Act of 2010 has actually complicated matters further for some people. It was created to make lenders responsible for verifying a customer\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s financial situation and seeing if a customer could pay without substantial hardship.<\/p>\n

There are some mortgage lenders who will consider lending to older borrowers. Some have an upper age limit of 70 years old and a few have no formal upper age limit for borrowers. The mortgage term available to older borrowers will usually depend on their age at application.<\/p>\n

In some cases borrowers can be turned down if one partner is viewed as too old or both candidates are not paying into a pension fund.<\/p>\n

In 2016, the Co-operative Bank paid out \u00c2\u00a32,000 in compensation after it was found to be guilty of discrimination by the Financial Ombudsman Service when a 69 year old borrower wanted to extend his mortgage by five years. As a consequence, the bank reviewed some of its policies to make sure no further discrimination took place.<\/p>\n

The customers most at risk of being declined are:<\/p>\n