Councils and lenders are to discuss how to widen the use of equity release loans that allow low-income homeowners to fund repairs.
The Northern Housing Consortium and the Council of Mortgage Lenders will bring both groups together at the end of next month to discuss ways of making equity release products simple and widely available.

The aim is also to make the loans, often for small sums and moderate returns, cheaper for the lenders to administrate.

Alan Elkin, a consultant working on the project for the Northern Housing Consortium, said: "The products need to be applicable to everyone.

"Local authorities want access to cheap loans with simple understandable conditions while lenders will want volume."

He said discussions could lead to modifications to existing products or perhaps to new types of equity release.

Source

Housing Today