Too many brokers and equity release specialists are missing products older homeowners need, as the case for whole-of-life mortgage advice grows
The divide between equity release specialists and mainstream mortgage advisers is leaving older UK homeowners at risk of missing the products best suited to them.
One later-life lending specialist now predicts the dedicated equity release adviser will disappear altogether, replaced by mortgage advisers who stay with clients throughout their lives.
The warning echoes concerns raised by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). In a speech to the Later Life Lending Summit in June, Emad Aladhal, director of retail banking at the FCA, said the market had been set up in silos, with mortgages, pensions, investments and later-life planning each operating in their own corner, and advisers often failing to look at the whole journey. As he put it, "consumers do not live their lives in silos".
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Why is the split in advice a risk for older borrowers?
David Forsdyke (pictured top), partner and head of later-life finance at Knight Frank Finance in London, has spent more than two decades in equity release and sees advice as the sector's biggest weakness today.
"There are too many advisers out there that are not yet aware of the products that are available," he told Mortgage Introducer. "There's lots of people who've been specialist equity release advisers for years who've lost sight of what the mainstream mortgage market can offer."
That can leave some specialists unaware of retirement mortgages and interest-only options that might suit their clients better, and Forsdyke said "equity release specialists need to expand their offering". The gap runs the other way too, with many mortgage advisers not yet up to speed on what later-life lending can do for their older clients.
"We've kind of got this separation of advice, and we need to find a way of bringing it all together," he said.
Forsdyke expects the divide to close by removing the specialism entirely.
"I see a future where you don't have equity release advisers at all," he said. "You literally have mortgage advisers that carry clients all the way through their lives. I think the time for such specialist advice is probably gone now."
The industry's own trade body is already moving in that direction. Equity Release Council members voted last December to extend the council's remit to all regulated later-life lending, with equity release remaining a core, protected area of its work.
Are lenders ready for older borrowers?
Forsdyke expects later-life lending to grow considerably over the next few years, but not necessarily through equity release.
"I don't think that growth will necessarily be in equity release, but I think more and more mortgage lenders will realise that older homeowners need borrowing solutions," he said.
Some lenders have raised their maximum age limits and others have removed them from their criteria altogether. A growing number have also launched ranges designed specifically for older borrowers, typically open to applicants from 50 or 55. The high street has yet to follow.
"It's not yet hit the sort of mainstream high-street lenders," Forsdyke said. "They're still sticking to sort of maximum age 75 and having to pay the mortgage back by retirement."
He expects that to change. "I imagine those mainstream lenders will eventually catch on and realise that they need to start offering better solutions for those older homeowners."
Many borrowers are unaware how far criteria has already moved. Research from Suffolk Building Society found that nearly two thirds of brokers say older clients assume lenders restrict by age, even though 60% had seen later-life enquiries rise over the past 12 months.
Regulation may also speed things up. The FCA has consulted on retirement interest-only affordability as part of its mortgage rule review and aims to publish final rules in the second half of 2026, while a progress update on its market study into later-life mortgages is due by the end of the year.
Forsdyke said the pressure behind that demand is generational. Two or three generations have enjoyed tremendous growth in property values, leaving significant wealth tied up in an illiquid asset.
"It's those same generations that have seen a steady decline in pension provisions," he said. "We're going to see people tapping into property wealth as part of their retirement planning. I'm convinced of that."
How should advisers structure later-life conversations?
Bringing those strands together starts with the client rather than the product. Forsdyke's team begins with fact-finding on immediate needs, medium and long-term objectives and the risks ahead, including changes in health or in where and how a client wants to live.
"I quite often come across clients that are in very large houses that they've become very attached to, but have they thought about what happens if in their older age their mobility declines?" he said. "Are they going to want to be trekking up and down the stairs every day or having to move around a very large property when their health might be declining?"
Only once those needs are clear does the team identify a product, and the recommendation has to hold up over the long term as well as the short.
"Once we get to that stage, it's a matter of going back to the client and presenting that product and presenting it in a way that they fully understand what it is, how it works, what the pros and cons are, not just the short-term picture, but what does the long-term picture look like," Forsdyke said.
"We start with the client. We don't think about the product until we really understand what it is that the client needs or wants to achieve."
Why should families be part of the process?
That approach extends to the client's family. Forsdyke's sales process covers who a client's beneficiaries are and what conversations they are having with them, and beneficiaries are welcome to join meetings and be kept informed of the advice if the client is comfortable with that.
"Our approach has always been that family members, beneficiaries of the client, are extremely important," he said. "And we want to get them involved in the conversation whenever possible."
The aim is to avoid an unwelcome discovery further down the line.
"It's a really important part of the whole process because what you don't want is a situation where, once these clients have passed away, beneficiaries are taken by surprise that the clients have got an equity release product in place that they knew nothing about," Forsdyke said. "That's the last thing we want."
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