A lender assesses your property against its own published criteria, and those criteria differ between lenders and between products from the same lender. This page sets out what a refusal is, the difference between being referred and being declined, the four things that can change the answer and the one thing that cannot.
One lender, one set of criteria, one date. That is what a refusal is, and this site can show you where the next lender published something different.
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.
A lender assesses your property against its own published criteria, and those criteria differ between lenders and between products from the same lender. A refusal tells you what one of them decided on one day. It does not tell you what your home is worth, whether it is saleable, or what anybody else would say about it.
This site documents eleven property features and quotes what lenders publish about each. On several of them, two providers published answers pointing in different directions. That is not an argument for asking everybody until somebody says yes, which is what an adviser is for. It is a reason not to treat one answer as the answer.
On a short lease, one lender requires the age of the youngest applicant plus the remaining lease term to reach 175 years between them. Another publishes no minimum lease term at all, and limits the number of flats in the building instead. Those are not the same question.
Read the short lease guide →Every rule quoted on this site carries the date we opened it, because lenders rewrite them. A rule that declined you last year is not necessarily the rule today.
The eleven property guides →One lender moves Wimpey No-Fines and Mundic properties from a problem to accepted where a current A1 category report is held. The property did not change; what could be shown about it did.
Non-standard construction →One provider publishes four products with different rules on the same feature. On an annexe, one requires internal access and a maximum of two units; another contemplates letting to two occupiers.
A property with an annexe →One lender publishes that an ex-council property is unacceptable while the right-to-buy clawback period is still running, and a referral once it has been exceeded. That period ends on a date.
An ex-council home →Refused, declined, rejected, turned down. The words get used interchangeably, and none of them tells you which rule you failed. The distinction worth drawing is a different one.
Several of the criteria quoted on this site refer a property rather than declining it. A referral means the published rule does not settle it and somebody will look. It is a question, not an answer, and it is worth establishing which of the two you have actually been given.
Where a property is referred, what usually decides it is evidence: what a surveyor reports, what paperwork exists, and what can be shown rather than described.
What the property is. No report makes a flying freehold into an ordinary freehold, no certificate turns a leasehold flat into a house, and nothing changes the decade a timber frame was built in. Where a criterion turns on a fact about the building, the fact is the answer.
This matters because the useful next step is different in each case. If the rule turns on evidence, the work is finding it. If it turns on what the property is, the work is finding a lender whose published rule is different, and that is an adviser job rather than a reading job.
Which lender would say yes. We have not seen your property, we do not know, and naming one would be a recommendation, which we are not authorised to make.
That a refusal is a mistake. Sometimes the published rule is clear and the property does not meet it. A page that treated every decline as an obstacle to be got round would be doing the thing this site exists to be an alternative to.
Whether anybody would accept your property. We publish what lenders publish, with the date we opened it, and that is all. We are not authorised to advise anybody and we cannot recommend a lender or a product. Criteria change, they differ between providers, and a decision about a specific house is made by somebody who has seen it.
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.
Most of this you can establish without ringing anybody, and all of it makes the next conversation shorter.
Questions for the person who is allowed to answer them.
Was this a decline against a published criterion, or a referral that came back negative?
They are different, and so is what happens next. A referral that failed on evidence can sometimes be revisited with better evidence. A decline against a clear rule usually cannot.
Which criterion was it, in the lender's own words?
A named rule is something you can read and check. A summary of one is not, and summaries of these rules are wrong surprisingly often.
Does that lender publish other products with different rules on this?
At least one provider gives different answers across its four products for the same property feature. It is worth asking before looking anywhere else.
Is there evidence that would change it?
For some features a report is the difference between a problem and an acceptance. For others nothing changes what the property is, and knowing which you are dealing with saves months.
When were these criteria last updated?
Lenders rewrite them. A rule that applied when you were last told no may not be the rule now, and the date is a fair thing to ask about.
Short answers to the things that come up most. None of it is advice, and every figure on this page carries its source.
Not on its own. Criteria differ between lenders and between products from the same lender, and this site quotes cases where two providers published answers pointing in different directions on the same feature. What one refusal tells you is what one lender decided on one date.
A decline means the property fails a published rule. A referral means the rule does not settle it and somebody will look, usually at what a surveyor reports or what paperwork exists. Establishing which one you were given is the most useful thing you can do next.
Four things can: the criterion, because lenders rewrite them and every rule quoted here carries the date we opened it; the evidence, because for some construction types a report moves a property from a problem to accepted; the product, because one provider publishes four with different rules; and the date, because a right-to-buy clawback period ends on one.
What the property is. No report makes a flying freehold into an ordinary freehold and nothing changes the decade a timber frame was built in. Where a criterion turns on a fact about the building, the fact is the answer.
No. We have not seen it, we are not authorised to advise anybody, and naming a lender would be a recommendation. What this page can do is help you find out exactly what you were refused on, so somebody who is authorised can tell you whether it matters.
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.