Ah the excellent value for money Equity Release companies, laying in wait to pounce when the OAP doesn't pay back the money or passes away.
I wonder if this will follow the pattern of Grenfell? Conclude the inquiry, then a year or two to prepare prosecutions?
You may well be right (but I am not holding my breath!), but prosecution of the perpetrators has nothing to do with payment of compensation to the sub-postmasters wrongly convicted, bankrupted etc
I quite agree, and specifically highlighted that in my post.
So do I. Which is why I have absolutely no objection with putting a means test on the winter fuel allowance.
I don't agree.
But if you can't afford to run the house which you have lived in for many years because of Government fiscal action based on the nominal value of such house, then that is a different matter. That does not happen to 'the rest of the world'. Downsizing will mean a disruptive move, and likely move to a different area away from friends and the area you know. I would not trust Equity Release, and I would not relish owing some financial institution at that time of life either.
It’ll be a mixture of things, including the various savings/pensions regimes that you’ve included in your post.
I'm not suggesting it for anybody but ER is far more regulated today than years ago and, given the right circumstances, is a valid means to extract some equity from a home.
If £300- £6 a week- is make or break then you can’t afford your house anyway.
As I said, this is fine in the normal way of life. It is not fine if you can't afford to run the house which you have lived in for many years because of Government fiscal action based on the nominal value of such a house.
Surely the best way to deal with that is with inheritance tax, (on the basis that any inheritance is a windfall), rather than imposing some duty on children earlier - not forgetting those who do not have children to leave an inheritance anyway. Rather than forcing people out of their houses whilst still alive, or into the clutches of dubious money lending schemes. Of course the problem is inheritance tax can be got around, especially by those with serious quantities.
The Water Industry, and the Banks are regulated too........
I don't think the loss of a benefit of £2-300 per year is going to be the sole reason for anyone selling their house. For some it will add a little to the pressure of trying to hang on to a house which they can't afford, but that's all.
It's hardly a fair comparison LOL!
I have huge sympathy for people who are over the threshold for Pension Credit by less than £300 per year/£6 per week. I would have increased the threshold for Pension Credit by £300 per year to protect these people.
The two things are not linked- the value of the house you live in is (rightly) not treated as savings for the purposes of calculating entitlement to Pension Credit.
Some women born in the 1950s had their pension age increased by 6 years, from 60 to 66.
I am a current pensioner and didn’t receive it until I was 66 a loss of one years pension. My wife’s was deferred from 60 to 66. I make that a total loss of seven years in our household, so your comment doesn't hold much water .
When I started work my pension age was 65 and is (was) 66, but living standards and medical advances have put my generation and later in a much better position and health, and I certainly don't begrudge the lost year of pension.
Life expectancy may well be decreasing but not to anything like the life expectancy of the people who were retiring when I started work. The average age of people starting work is also getting higher and higher (sixth form, University and college etc) so the average number of years that people are working is probably about the same, if not less.
The change for women was to remove a discrimination against men, who were having to work longer while having a shorter life expectancy.
And they had 20+ years notice as it was first raised in, I think, 1995.
Just like the massive success of David Camerons "long term economic plan"? That led to one of the slowest recoveries of any developed country.
And "stereotypes" figure considerably in some recent posts. My wife and I are in our mid-80s are comfortably off. Not very comfortably off, like some people we know, though as these things are relative we might be considered extremely comfortably off by some who are in a less fortunate position. We had opportunities to save for our retirement and we used them. I don't think it is at all unfair that we will no longer receive the winter fuel allowance, though one can debate whether the method used to decide who gets it and who doesn't is the best one. There will always be some who fall just the wrong side of a line. In the same way, there will be some, but not a high proportion, who are asset rich and cash poor, so they have to make choices. It isn't a moral crime that that should be the case.
I think many people dont perceive the Tories as “unelectable” as they were during the election; people move on, forget or attribute the blame the current government now. Labours honeymoon period is long over and the polling that I have seen suggests a small bounce back to the Tories and a surge in support for Reform UK (although this doesn’t translate into any significant seat gains)
Yes true I wonder if we will get a second term with Labour maybe too early to say but if they keep banning stuff smoking more cuts tax rises?
