As far as anything in the financial services industry goes, lifetime mortages are actually quite simple. However, they haven’t always been simple: we have the Financial Services Authority to thank for that. Now, with regulations at a steady compromise between government and provider, we can be thankful that ‘industry standard’ is a term bandied about in the equity release and home reversion market.
There hasn’t always been an industry standard criteria or anything else for that matter. Terms have varied widely along with the criteria for equity release mortgages qualification. Now terms still do vary and there are different criteria amongst the providers but these differences are usually only on the peripheral and unusual criteria; not the standard ones such as age or loan-to-equity ratio.