Commenting on the move, Peter Welch, head of sales and distribution at Bridgewater Equity Release, said: “Stonehaven’s decision to suspend all new lending is not surprising given the growing funding challenges lifetime mortgage providers are currently facing. Over the course of the past year we have seen a number of providers leave the lifetime mortgage sector because of the difficulty in securing the necessary finance to continue lending. The open-ended nature of this announcement shows that sources of lifetime mortgage funding are currently at a premium and it is therefore difficult to put a timescale on when these lines will be open again.
“We believe the problems that many providers are having in accessing funding are much more acute in the lifetime mortgage product arena than in home reversions.”
