Four things, and none of them is your income. This page sets out what lenders assess and where their rules differ, using criteria they publish themselves. It cannot tell you whether your home will be accepted, and you should be wary of any page that says it can.
Equity release may involve a lifetime mortgage, secured against your property, or a home reversion plan. It will reduce the value of your estate and impact funding long-term care.
Your age does not only decide whether a plan is possible. It decides how much: the maximum rises with every year you wait, from 25% at 55 to 54% at 80 or over.
See the figure for every year of age →Age is the one thing close to universal, and even it moves between lenders and between the two products. Everything after this section is about how much the rest varies.
Legal & General’s youngest applicant on their published criteria. On a joint plan it is the age of the younger of you that counts.
The minimum age is commonly 60 or over, higher than the 55 typical for a lifetime mortgage.
Being old enough is where it starts and not where it ends. Meeting an age floor is not qualifying: the property, the tenure, any existing mortgage and each lender’s own rules all still apply, and they are the reason the next section exists.
Legal & General lending criteria and Equity Release Council standards, checked 7 September 2026 and 6 September 2026.
With a lifetime mortgage there is nothing to pay each month unless you choose to pay it. Nothing to pay means nothing to be affordable, which is why none of these comes into it.
Being retired, self-employed or on a small pension does not decide this. What decides it is your age, and the house.
No affordability test does not mean no credit check, and this site said it did until 7 September 2026. Legal & General publish the following under a heading called Credit check, for their Interest Roll Up and Optional Payment lifetime mortgages.
One lender, on one date, and their stricter products publish stricter rules again. It is not a market rule and it is not an affordability test. It does mean that an old credit problem is worth mentioning to an adviser rather than assuming it cannot matter.
Legal & General’s criteria, opened 7 September 2026 →Every lender writes its own rules, and they differ more than most people expect. Here are two, as they publish them themselves. Read them as worked examples of how much the answer moves, not as a list to check yourself against.
Source: Legal & General published lending criteria. Opened and checked 7 September 2026.
Source: Pure Retirement published lending criteria. Opened and checked 7 September 2026.
Look at the ex-local-authority line. That is one lender setting four different minimum property values across four of its own products. A page that tells you “the minimum is £70,000” is not wrong so much as incomplete, and incomplete is how people end up disappointed.
Plans from the whole of the market will be considered, the features mentioned and the amounts raised, are subject to the lender's criteria, terms and conditions. These may take into account the age, health and lifestyle factors in order to provide you with an enhanced amount, if needed.
Scottish Widows is reported to say: “Habitable space within [75m] of a pylon, overhead cable or mobile mast is unacceptable.”
Their lending policy page returned an error when we tried to re-open it on 5 September 2026, so this is recorded as unverified rather than dropped or published as fact. We have left it bracketed and attributed rather than dropping it or publishing it as fact.
None of these is an automatic no, and none of them is an automatic yes. Each one gives a valuer or a lender something to look at, and each one has an answer you can go and find before you speak to anybody.
An invasive plant that spreads through the ground and can damage hard surfaces and drains.
It is a valuation question rather than an automatic refusal. RICS replaced its old seven-metre measure in March 2022 with a four-category assessment of the infestation, how it is being managed and what effect it has on the property. At least one lender's published criteria still use seven metres.
Any specialist survey, the management plan, the treatment guarantee and what work has already been done.
Foam sprayed onto the underside of a roof, usually sold as an energy-saving measure.
A surveyor may want a specialist report before valuing the property, because the foam can hide the condition of the roof timbers underneath it.
Who installed it and when, the warranty, any independent test or BBA certificate, and any roof work done since.
A self-contained part of the property with its own facilities, whether or not anyone lives in it.
It raises questions about who occupies it, whether it is on the same title, how it is rated for council tax and whether it could be let separately. It is a fact-finding signal, not a refusal.
The title, the council tax banding, who lives there and on what basis, and any planning or building control paperwork.
A leasehold property where the remaining term is limited.
There is no single number that applies everywhere. Providers combine the remaining term with the age of the youngest applicant in different ways, so the same lease can pass with one lender and fail with another.
The exact remaining term, the ground rent, the service charge, and whether the freeholder will extend.
A house or flat originally built by a council or housing association.
The label itself decides nothing. Whether it is a house or a flat, how the block is built, how tall it is and what restrictions sit on the title all matter more, and minimum values differ sharply between products.
Whether it is a house or a flat, the construction, the number of storeys, and any restriction on the title.
Anything not built of brick or block with a tiled roof: concrete, steel or timber frame, prefabricated panels, thatch.
It affects how readily the property could be sold and insured, which is what the lender is ultimately lending against. Nobody can classify a construction type from a description or a photograph.
How and when it was built, any repair certificates, and whether it is insurable on normal terms.
Part of your property sits above land or a building somebody else owns, or theirs sits above yours.
The proportion affected and the rights of access and support in the title are what get assessed. Legal & General publishes a threshold of up to 15%; other providers set their own.
The title plan, roughly what proportion is affected, and what your solicitor says about rights of access and support.
High-voltage infrastructure close to the property.
Some providers publish a distance from habitable space. A distance in one provider's policy is that provider's commercial rule about resale, not a general standard and not a statement about health.
What the infrastructure actually is and roughly how far it is from the parts of the house you live in.
A home adjoining or above a shop, pub, takeaway or workshop.
It is assessed case by case on the type of business, how the buildings physically relate and how readily the home would sell. Living near a business is not by itself a refusal.
What the business is, its hours, and how the two buildings are connected.
A legal restriction on the title limiting who may occupy the property or what it can be used for.
This is a title question rather than a valuation one. Legal & General lists onerous restrictive covenants such as agricultural ties as a decline.
The exact wording of the restriction, from your solicitor. We cannot interpret a covenant and neither can an adviser.
RICS standard on Japanese knotweed and residential property, RICS consumer guide to spray foam insulation . Checked 7 September 2026. Lender criteria change, so anything here should be read together with the date on it.
Equity release requires repaying any existing mortgage. Money released, plus accrued interest, would need to be repaid upon death or moving into long-term care.
Whether your home will be accepted. Nobody can tell you that from a web page, including the pages that offer to. It takes a valuer who has been to the property and a lender who has read the title, and it is a decision about one house on one day under one product.
We are not advisers and we do not give advice. What we can do is tell you what gets assessed, so that when you do speak to somebody you already know which questions are yours to answer.
Talk it through with an adviserA refusal is one lender’s answer, on one product, on one day. It is not a verdict on your house.
The criteria on this page show how far apart two lenders can be on the same question, and a single lender can differ from itself across its own product range. Criteria also change: the lender that said no two years ago may have moved, and several have.
Ask what the actual reason was, in writing if you can get it. A specific reason is something an adviser with access to the whole market can work with.
The things people ask before they are willing to speak to anyone. None of this is advice.
We check nothing. We are not a lender and we do not run a search of any kind. A lender does: one publishes that credit and voters roll searches will be carried out on all applicants, and that up to four CCJs per application will be accepted. What no lender does on a lifetime mortgage is assess affordability, because there is nothing to pay each month unless you choose to make payments. Being retired, self-employed or on a low income does not decide whether a plan is possible.
At least 55 for a lifetime mortgage with most lenders, and 60 or over for most home reversion plans. Where two of you own the property together it is the age of the younger of you that counts, both for whether you qualify at all and for how much you could release.
It depends on the lender and on what kind of property it is. Legal & General publishes a minimum of £70,000 for houses and bungalows and £100,000 for flats and maisonettes. Pure Retirement sets minimums for ex-local-authority property that run from £70,000 to £150,000 depending on which of its products is used.
Usually, yes. Equity release requires repaying any existing mortgage, so the mortgage is cleared first out of the money released and what reaches you is the balance. If the amount you could release is less than the mortgage outstanding, it will not work.
Yes. Coverage differs by lender and several exclude parts of the UK entirely. Legal & General lends in England, Wales, mainland Scotland and the Isle of Wight, and does not lend in Northern Ireland, the Isle of Man, the Channel Islands or the Scilly Isles.
Not necessarily. Criteria differ between lenders and between products from the same lender, and they change. A refusal is one lender's answer on one product on one day, not a verdict on the property. An adviser with access to the whole market is the person to ask.
Equity release may involve a lifetime mortgage, secured against your property, or a home reversion plan. It will reduce the value of your estate and impact funding long-term care.
One qualified equity release adviser. They will go through your figures and tell you if there is a better answer. It costs nothing and commits you to nothing.
Google Analytics, Microsoft Clarity and Vimeo. Say no and none of them loads. What each one stores, and what Microsoft use theirs for.