The rise of the 40-year mortgage and the dangers for homeowners

Longer mortgages will mean millions of Britons will be still paying off their homes after they’ve reached retirement age, writes James Moore. With sky-high house prices is there any other solution?

Younger home buyers are being forced to gamble with their retirement prospects by taking on ultra-long mortgages, according to former pensions minister Sir Steve Webb (Joe Giddens/PA)

Once upon a time, Britons hoped to be rid of their mortgages sometime in their fifties, ahead of a smooth path to retirement. That increasingly looks like a fantasy.

A freedom of information request by former pensions minister Steve Webb has revealed that an increasing number of young people are going to be worrying about making repayments into their dotage.

Webb, now a partner with pension consultant Lane Clark & Peacock, sought to track the proportion of new mortgages beyond the state retirement age, currently 66, in the wake of the recent publication of the Bank of England’s financial policy report. It showed that 42 per cent of new mortgages in the final three months of 2023 were like this. Webb’s FOI found that compares to less than a third (31 per cent) in the fourth quarter of 2021.