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The calculator

Why the figure you were given can change

A calculator multiplies what your home is worth by a maximum percentage for your age, and nothing about you or your property has been assessed at that point. This is everything that moves the number afterwards.

An indicative figure is a maximum against your age and property value before anybody has looked at anything. Here is everything that moves 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.

How this page is kept
Written by
Equity Release Facts editorial
Last checked
6 September 2026
Next review
6 March 2027

It is a ceiling, not a quote

A calculator multiplies what your home is worth by a maximum percentage for your age. That is the whole calculation, and nothing about you or your property has been assessed at the point it produces a number.

Everything below can move it, and most of them move it downwards. None of that is anybody behaving badly: it is the difference between an arithmetic maximum and a decision about a real house.

What the figure rests on

A schedule supplied to us by the adviser and dated. No lender publishes maximum loan to value by age, so it is not a figure you can go and verify, and our calculator page says so.

The calculator, and where its figures come from →
The valuation

A valuer decides what the property is worth, not the owner and not an online estimate. That figure is the one the percentage is applied to.

How a valuation works →
Your age, exactly

It is the age of the younger of you, and it steps up every single year. A birthday between enquiry and application changes the number.

What the calculator assumes →
Any mortgage outstanding

Repaid first out of what is released. What reaches you is the balance, and if the mortgage is larger than the maximum, it does not work.

The property itself

Construction, tenure, land, what is next door. The property guides on this site are about exactly this, and any of them can change what a lender will do.

What gets assessed →
Which product you are placed on

Different products from the same lender have different maximums, different minimum values and different criteria.

How the products differ →
Health, which moves it upwards

The one that goes the other way. An enhanced plan can offer more where there are medical or lifestyle factors, because the plan is expected to run for less time.

Age limits and criteria →
What we are not telling you

What figure you would actually be offered. We publish a schedule and the date it was supplied, and an adviser with the whole market applies real criteria to a real property. Those are different exercises and only the second one produces an offer.

Worth knowing

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.

Where this comes from
  1. 01 Equity Release Facts · opened 6 September 2026 Practical guidance, with every figure sourced on the page it belongs to This page carries no figures of its own. Where it refers to one, it links to the page that sources it.

Questions worth asking

  1. 01

    What is my property actually likely to be valued at?

    The number everything else is a percentage of. An adviser will have a view before a valuer visits.

  2. 02

    How much of what I release goes on repaying my mortgage?

    It comes off the top. Ask for the net figure rather than the gross one.

  3. 03

    Would any health or lifestyle factors mean an enhanced plan?

    The only thing on the list that moves the figure upwards, and it has to be assessed rather than applied for.

  4. 04

    Is there anything about my property that would change this?

    Raise it early. It is much easier before a valuation than after one.

Read next

What has changed on this page
  1. First publication, alongside the calculator methodology page.
How this page is kept
Written by
Equity Release Facts editorial
Last checked
6 September 2026
Next review
6 March 2027
Checked 10 September 2026
[6.20%]lowest lump sum rate, fixed for life[lender rate sheets] [6.44%]lowest drawdown rate[lender rate sheets] 43.5%most you could release at 70LTV schedule, July 2026 54%most you could release at 80 or overLTV schedule, July 2026 55Legal & General's youngest applicantL&G lending criteria, 6 September 2026 £0to pay each month unless you choose tosubject to lender terms [6 to 8 weeks]typical time from application to money £70,000Legal & General's minimum for a houseL&G lending criteria, 6 September 2026

Questions people ask about this

Short answers to the things that come up most. None of it is advice, and every figure on this page carries its source.

Why is the calculator figure only a starting point?

It is a maximum against your age and property value, produced before anybody has looked at anything. Nothing about you or your property has been assessed at the point it appears.

Does the figure usually go up or down?

Most of the things that move it move it downwards. None of that is anybody behaving badly: it is the difference between an arithmetic maximum and a decision about a real house.

What is most likely to change it?

The valuer visit, because the figure starts from the value you typed in rather than a professional valuation, and anything about the property that a lender treats as a question. The property guides on this site cover the features that most often raise one.

Is a lower final figure a sign something has gone wrong?

No. The estimate is a ceiling produced by multiplication. The offer is a decision about a specific house, made by somebody who has seen it.

Worth knowing

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.

Talk it through with an adviser

Takes about two minutesFree, no obligation, and nothing committed

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.

Advice is required to proceed with equity release and there may be other options which better suit your circumstances. Only if your case completes would an advice fee be payable, and the adviser will tell you what theirs is before you commit to anything. Other lender and solicitor fees may apply.

We pass your details to one adviser and nobody else.