Every figure on this site names the document it came from and the day we opened it. This page sets out the five rules behind that, counts what they have produced, lists the documents that refused us, and records every change made to a page since it was published, including the one where we were wrong.
Every figure on this site names the document it came from and the day we opened it. This page sets out the rule, counts what it has produced, and lists what we have got wrong.
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 equity release content is written from other equity release content. Ours is written from the documents lenders and regulators publish, which is slower, produces fewer pages, and occasionally produces a page whose answer is that we could not find out.
These are the rules the site is built to. They are enforced by the tests that run before anything is published, not by anybody remembering them.
A number with no source cannot be checked, argued with, or updated when it changes. A dated quotation can be all three, including by you.
Not "lenders say" and not "research shows". The publisher, the document, and a link you can open yourself.
The day we opened the source, on the page, next to the figure. A criteria document rewritten last week makes a year-old quotation wrong.
Where a rule decides something, the lender's own sentence goes on the page. Our paraphrase sits underneath it where you can see both.
An unverified figure appears as [like this] and stays that way. We do not estimate, round or borrow one from somewhere else to fill the gap.
Where a source refused us, or a widely repeated claim could not be traced, the page says so instead of quietly leaving it out.
These four numbers are counted from the site itself each time this page is built, so they cannot drift from what is actually published.
This is our corrections log: every change made to a page after it was published, newest first. First publications are not listed, because publishing a page is not a change to it; there are 64 of those.
Corrected a figure this page was using to teach people how to read a figure. The Equity Release Council number was published here as their average advertised rate from Summer 2025, cited to their Q2 2026 release. The Council call it an average APR, it is from Q2 2025, and the release it was cited to does not contain it. The distinction is the point of the page: an APR has the fees folded into it and an advertised rate does not, so the two are different measures. The old copy set the 7.24 per cent against the lowest advertised rate and drew a conclusion from the gap, which is a sum that cannot be done. That sentence has gone, the source now points at the release the figure is actually in, and the Council prior-year figure of 6.64 per cent for Q2 2024 is published in its place because it compares one measure against itself.
Weekly rate check. Pure Retirement and more2life were opened on their own sites and neither publishes an interest rate to the public; Aviva refused the request. So every rate on this page stays in brackets, and the reason is now published rather than sitting in a code comment. The Council market figures were reopened and all four still match.
Corrected a claim that should not have been made. This page listed your credit record among the things never assessed, and that is wrong: no affordability test is not the same as no credit check. Legal & General publish, under a heading called Credit check, that credit and voters roll searches will be carried out on all applicants for both of their lifetime mortgage products, and that up to four CCJs per application will be accepted. The claim has been removed from the seven places that carried it across the site, the quotations are published in its place, and the source was reopened the same day.
Corrected the clawback rule, which this page had the wrong way round. Legal & General refer a pre-emption clause and publish that it is unacceptable inside the right-to-buy clawback period, so a property is declined while that period runs and referred once it has been exceeded. We had said the reverse. The source was reopened the same day and the fuller quotation added.
Sources reopened. The Equity Release Council and RICS pages opened and were confirmed. MoneyHelper refused the request and the FCA Register did not return a readable page to an automated check; both are marked as not reopened rather than given a date.
Added Legal & General's own published decline of spray foam insulation in a loft, found while reading their criteria for the non-standard construction guide. A named lender's published position is a stronger source than a consumer organisation's summary of the market.
Some documents refuse an automated request, and one of the most useful is a public register that does not return a readable page to one. Where that happened we say so on the page concerned and publish the link anyway, so you can go and look. No claim on this site rests on a document in this list alone.
Could not be opened. The document returns HTTP 403 to an automated request, so we have not read it and make no claim about what it contains. The Aviva figure on this page is bracketed and stays that way. The link is published so you can try it yourself in a browser.
Open it yourself (Aviva: With an Aviva Lifetime Mortgage: our guide to equity release (adviser document)) → The page that says so: Equity release interest rates, and how to read one →We could not reopen this on 6 September 2026: the site refused our request. The link is published so you can go to it yourself, and no claim on this page rests on it alone.
Open it yourself (MoneyHelper: Equity release guidance) → The page that says so: Equity release glossary →We could not reopen this on 6 September 2026: the Register is a JavaScript application and does not return a readable page to an automated check. It is a live public service and the link is correct.
Open it yourself (Financial Conduct Authority: The Financial Services Register) → The page that says so: Equity release glossary →Named in the brief for this page. It refuses an automated request, as it does elsewhere on this site, so nothing here rests on it. Every rule quoted above comes from the FCA Handbook.
Open it yourself (MoneyHelper: What is equity release) → The page that says so: How to read an equity release illustration →Named in the brief. It refuses an automated request, as it does elsewhere on this site, so no claim here rests on it.
Open it yourself (MoneyHelper: Lifetime mortgage) → The page that says so: Paying interest on equity release →We could not reopen this on 8 September 2026: UK Finance's own link to it returns 403 Access Denied from their content network. It is the document that carries the itemised minimum requirements, so the link is published for you to try yourself, and no statement on this page rests on it.
Open it yourself (UK Finance: Template letter containing lenders' minimum requirements for a roof space lease) → The page that says so: Equity release with a solar panel lease on the roof →A distance rule is widely attributed to this document. We have tried to open it three times across two sessions and it has returned an error page every time, so we have never read it and the figure is not published here.
Open it yourself (Scottish Widows: Lifetime mortgage lending policy) → The page that says so: Equity release near pylons and overhead cables →We could not reopen either their criteria document or their leasehold page on 6 September 2026: both refused our request. A figure for Aviva circulates in third-party guides and is deliberately not repeated here.
Open it yourself (Aviva: Lifetime mortgages lending criteria, and their leasehold guidance) → The page that says so: Equity release with a short lease →We could not reopen this on 6 September 2026: the document returned an error to our request. A second lender would make this page better and it is the obvious next thing to check by hand.
Open it yourself (Aviva: Lifetime mortgages lending criteria) → The page that says so: Equity release on a property with an annexe →Our sources fall into three kinds: lenders for what a lender will do, regulators and standard-setters for what the rules are, and government for anything about benefits or tax. Where two of them disagree we publish both positions rather than picking one.
Advisers. Checking a source carefully is not the same as being authorised to tell you what to do, and we are not. Every figure here describes what somebody published, not what would happen to you. A decision about your circumstances has to be made with somebody who is allowed to make 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.
Short answers to the things that come up most. None of it is advice, and every figure on this page carries its source.
The documents lenders, regulators and government publish, opened and read rather than cited from memory. Each one is named on the page that uses it, with the day we opened it and a link so you can go to it yourself.
That we could not verify it. A bracketed figure is a gap we have left visible rather than filled, and it stays bracketed until a primary source confirms it. We do not estimate, round or borrow a number from another site to close it.
We publish the fact that we could not confirm them. Two claims widely repeated elsewhere, a seven-metre rule about knotweed and a distance rule about pylons, appear here as claims we could not trace to a source rather than as facts.
The page is corrected, the change is dated and described on the page itself, and it is listed here. The record is deliberately not filtered: a corrections log containing only improvements would be an advertisement.
Every page carries a check date and a next review date, both shown on the page. Lender criteria and rates change without notice, which is why the date sits beside the figure rather than in a footer nobody reads.
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.