The plan will enable people aged over 65 to buy a property at a discount suitable for retirement. The price paid is based on age, sex and marital status. Typically, homeowners sell their existing property and use part of the equity to buy a life interest in a property. The property then becomes their legal home allowing them to make the most of their retirement years with the remaining equity.
The life interest plan can be applied to almost any property on the market in the UK. Economic Lifestyle will offer intermediaries 3 per cent of the money released through the transaction.
Mark Neal, managing director at Economic Lifestyle, said: “Choosing to move home when you are retired is not an easy decision. Many homeowners may feel daunted by the typically high cost of retirement properties, even if they appear more suitable for their needs. The life interest plan is unique and gives retired people a genuine opportunity to change their lives for the better.”
Economic Lifestyle offers other retirement solutions, which include a cash release home reversion equity release scheme and a home exchange plan that can provide two cash offers for the current homes of people taking out the life interest plan or, economic lifestyle plan.
Commenting on the plan, Stuart Wilson, managing director of Equity Release Advisory Service, urged intermediaries involved in the lifetime mortgage sector to look at all the options available to them and their clients, rather than focus on the commission levels offered.
He explained: “Overall innovation is great, but Economic Lifestyle is innovating in the currently unregulated environment of home reversion schemes. It is important that however it distributes the retirement schemes, mortgage advisers sell them for the right reasons and not just for commission. The client must consider all variable alternatives.”
