Equity Release Schemes on the rise
The number of people entering into equity release schemes has
been on the rise in recent years as a result of their apparent
ability to help with a multitude of financial issues. On the face
of it, the schemes, which enable home owners to release wealth that
is otherwise tied up in property, appear to offer a number of
opportunities, including helping grandchildren onto the property
ladder, enabling pensioners to do more in their retirement or
clearing an existing mortgage. Equity release schemes are also
being used to repay the wave of maturing endowment mortgage
policies, entered into during the 1990's and early 2000's,
which have under-performed, leaving home owners with an unplanned
lump sum debt to meet. But are equity release schemes really as
good as they sound, or is this another problem product, of which we
will only see the downfall in years to come?
