What are the products?
There are two main products – Lifetime Mortgage or Home Reversion Plan.

What is a lifetime mortgage?

A lifetime mortgage is where you retain ownership of the property. The loan is repaid at the end of the term, together with any interest that has rolled up if you decide not to service the interest payments.

This is very similar to a typical mortgage, although a lifetime mortgage has no fixed term. It is repaid in full to the lender, together with any rolled up interest, on permanent vacation of your home.

What is a home reversion plan?

A home reversion plan is where the lender buys up to 100% of your home and rents it back to you for a nominal fee e.g. £1 per month. However, you lose ownership of up to 100% the property and may have zero equity left.

Are the products different?

As more lenders are coming into the Equity Release market, there is a wide variety of features which providers now offer with their products, such as cashback on completion, or a free valuation of your property.

Some lenders allow overpayments on a lifetime mortgage, which effectively turns it into a standard repayment mortgage. Typically you can overpay up to 10% of the outstanding plan every 12 months.

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What interest options are there?
There are two types of interest options – rolled up or interest only.

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What is interest only?

This is basically an interest-only mortgage with no end date that allows the customer to pay just the interest on the loan each month.

The loan will be paid back on permanent vacation of your home, such as the sale, moving into long-term care, or passing away. If your children or family want to keep the house, they can choose to repay the loan and maintain ownership.

What is rolled-up interest?

Interest is rolled up and added to the loan and is only repaid on permanent vacation of the property. This is usually due to death or moving into long-term care.

The Giraffe guarantee: If equity release is not right for you and your family, we’ll tell you.

How can I take the money?
There are two main ways to take your money – either as a lump sum or as a drawdown.

A lump-sum product means you take all of the cash you release from your home in one go. A drawdown allows you to take up to a set amount as and when you need it the most or regularly.

How am I protected?

The equity release market is regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). We only advise on products where the provider is part of the Equity Release Council, where certain conditions have to be met.

Any lender who is part of the Equity Release Council has to provide a ‘no negative equity guarantee’ with their products. This means that the amount you owe the lender will never be worth more than the value of your home.

Any lender who is part of the Equity Release Council has to provide a ‘no negative equity guarantee’ with their products. This means that the amount you owe the lender will never be worth more than the value of your home.

You can also choose to protect a certain percentage of the value of your home, of which the lender cannot claim at the end of the term. For example, you can choose to safeguard 10% of your estate, which means that at end of the mortgage, you, or your beneficiaries will receive at least this percentage of your home’s value at that time.

All of our advisers hold the relevant qualification in Equity Release and the firm is regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA).

Before you begin this process we recommend that you speak to your family.

If equity release is not right for you and your family, we’ll tell you.

Which providers do you use?

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The main providers in the market are: Hodge Lifetime, Canada Life, Retirement Bridge Group, Aviva, Legal and General, Just Retirement, Liverpool Victoria, onefamily, Retirement Plus, more2life and Pure Retirement.

More providers are joining the market due to customer demand and our equity release specialists have access to the whole market.

What happens next?

  1. Use our calculator to see how much you could potentially release from your home.
  2. Call Giraffe Equity Release on 0800 622 6414.
  3. Visit one of our offices or we can come to you for a FREE initial consultation.
  4. Have an interview (face-to-face or on the phone) with one of our qualified advisors.
  1. We will source the right product for you from across the whole market.
  2. We start the application process and a valuation of your property is instructed by the chosen provider.
  3. Application is approved by the provider and your solicitor.
  4. The funds are released for you to use.