Tim Spencer on stigma, terminology, and why the industry must do more to reach clients
The phrase "equity release" has become a problem. Tim Spencer (pictured top), managing director at Optimus Mortgages and a specialist in later-life lending, believes those two words carry so much historical baggage that they routinely derail conversations before they have properly begun, and the industry has done precious little to fix it.
"Financial education in this country is appalling," Spencer told Mortgage Introducer, with little hesitation. He described a sector that has allowed misconception to fester in place of clear, accessible information.
The scale of the problem is not in dispute. Only 9% of the roughly 330,000 mortgages advanced to over-55s in 2025 were lifetime mortgages or retirement interest-only products, according to data cited by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) at the Later Life Lending Summit in June. Fairer Finance research suggests that by 2040, 51% of households aged 60 and over could benefit from accessing their housing wealth through later-life lending – a gulf between potential and reality that Spencer encounters in practice every day.
"People are fixated on equity release because that is the only term that they know," he said. "And it's all very well organisations saying they'll start using later-life lending as the terminology, but the Equity Release Council is still called the Equity Release Council."
The terminology trap
The label "equity release" triggers preconceived ideas rooted in an earlier product era – ideas that bear little resemblance to the range of options available today. Retirement interest-only mortgages, optional payment lifetime mortgages, and standard products offered by lenders up to age 90 and beyond are all part of a landscape that many clients simply do not know exists.
"If I speak to anyone over 55, quite a lot of the initial conversations are, 'Oh yeah, we want to do X, Y, and Z, but we don't want equity release'," Spencer said. "And they don't know what it is. It's preconceived ideas from many, many years ago. It’s a different type of product."
He welcomes the growing push toward "later-life lending" as the default term, but he is candid about the limits of language reform alone. Advertising spend from key providers has dried up, and the conversation brokers can have with clients is constrained by the absence of any broader public narrative.
"There are fewer equity release adverts on the telly," Spencer said. "It's just not a thing anymore. Because they're not advertising, it's out of people's minds."
Total annual lending in the equity release market reached £2.57 billion in 2025, up 11% from £2.3 billion in 2024, according to the Equity Release Council. Yet set against the scale of latent demand, those figures underscore how far the market has to travel.
Education, one client at a time
As a one-man operation, the work of changing perceptions falls largely to individual conversations. Spencer runs through the full range of available options with each client, ensuring that a lifetime mortgage, where recommended, is demonstrably the right fit rather than a default.
"It's not right for everybody," he is careful to note. "There are so many potential alternatives, and that's part of my job, to run through those alternatives to make sure if somebody is going to do something like a lifetime mortgage, that it's absolutely the right thing for them."
The misconception he encounters most frequently is fundamental. Clients believe taking out a product secured against their home means risking it. "People just think they're going to lose their homes quite a lot of the time," he said. "And it's not like that. It's not like that at all.
"I say to clients, it's a little bit more like a grown-up mortgage, because you can choose – certainly with a lifetime mortgage – if you want to make the payments, there's no obligation. But those are the sort of quirks that need the full explanation."
A call for industry-wide action
The education challenge is not confined to clients. Financial advisers, accountants, and estate agents also require far greater awareness of what the sector now offers, and how specialist brokers can serve as a resource rather than a competitor.
The FCA has been direct on this point. Speaking at the Later Life Lending Summit in June, Emad Aladhal, director of retail banking at the FCA, warned that "the market is in silos – set up for mortgages, pensions, investments and later-life planning to play in different parts of the pitch", and called on advisers to consider the full consumer journey.
Spencer's view maps closely onto that diagnosis. "It's incumbent on the industry to educate people," he said – extending that view to lenders, the Equity Release Council, and the FCA itself. He is particularly direct about the Council. Until something significant shifts at the brand level, the terminology problem will persist.
"Until something big changes, they changed their name before, so it's not something completely unknown to the organisation. It's a little bit frustrating.
"There needs to be a proper, sensible discussion about later-life lending and how it can be advertised in a positive way to the general public. Because like I say, it isn't being done at the moment."
Want to be regularly updated with mortgage news and features? Get exclusive interviews, breaking news, and industry events in your inbox – subscribe to our FREE daily newsletter. You can also follow us on Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), and LinkedIn.
