Older home-owners can now get interest-only mortgages in retirement

Leeds Building Society said it is entering the market, with the new deals initially being made available through brokers.

Interest-only mortgages allow people to make regular interest payments on a loan, without paying off the loan itself – but the capital must be eventually paid off.

Leeds’ new mortgages are being offered to borrowers aged 55 to 80. The loans need to be repaid on a specified life event, which could be the sale of the property, moving into residential care or the death of the borrower. Borrowers will need to demonstrate that interest-only repayments are affordable throughout the term of the loan.

Leeds is offering three deals at fixed rates for two, three or five years.

The loans carry product fees of £999 and have rates of 3.34 per cent for the two-year deal, 3.49 per cent fixed for three years and 3.74 per cent fixed for five years.

For borrowers who are able to pay off some of the capital during the initial period of the loan, there is some scope to do this – 10 per cent capital repayments are allowed each year during the fixed-rate periods without incurring an early repayment charge. The maximum loan-to-value (LTV) on the deals is 55 per cent.

The move comes after the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) set out what constitutes a retirement interest-only mortgage earlier this year.

Richard Fearon, Leeds Building Society’s chief commercial officer, said there is a “clear customer need” for the products.

He said: “We pride ourselves on being nimble in entering the market. This is a new, developing market that we would expect to grow.”

He said that, as people live for longer, they are following more flexible career patterns and spending longer in retirement.

Asked about past controversies over interest-only loans generally, which have included some people having no firm plan in place to pay their loan back, Mr Fearon said borrowers would need to have a “clear plan” in place for paying back the mortgage, and affordability stress tests will make sure borrowers would be able to make their payments at a higher rate if they had to