Later life leaders call for ‘entrenched advice silos’ to be broken down

Later life lending leaders have called on distributors spanning mainstream mortgages and wealth management to break down entrenched advice silos, ensuring products such as lifetime mortgages are considered as part of re-financing existing mortgage borrowing as well as bringing property wealth into all planning conversations to deliver better outcomes for their clients.

Speaking at a recent summit hosted by Air, senior figures from property wealth fintech Nokkel, Legal & General and trade bodies UK Finance and the Association of Mortgage Intermediaries agreed that the equity release market is falling well short of its potential.

While the total later life lending market – including mainstream purchase, remortgage and product transfer lending – sits at around £60bn a year, equity release makes up just £2.6bn of that total.

Nick Birdseye, strategic partner development director at L&G, said: “Of that £60bn of lending, much of that will be written by advisers who don't have lifetime mortgage permissions. We know that the majority of customers are offered mortgage advice and they're offered advice across a quite a narrow spectrum of products, but of course once you get to 55, your available product landscape broadens significantly because all of the lifetime manufactured products come into play. However, I'm not sure how often they are being considered across the broader mortgage market.”

The FCA has acknowledged the problem. In the initial terms of reference for its landmark Later Life Mortgage Market Study, launched in March, the regulator said specialist later life products such as lifetime mortgages and retirement interest-only (RIO) loans "could play a greater role" in helping homeowners "achieve financial security and comfort in later life". The FCA will publish findings from its initial exploratory work by the end of 2026.

Ronnell Reffell, acting principal for mortgage policy at UK Finance, said: “People are buying later, they're borrowing for longer and they're also considering mortgage debt further into later life. This is articulated in our data, so in the last quarter of 2025, more than 40,000, new mortgages were taken by the over-55s – this demonstrates the opportunity.

“However, what we need to address is the challenge of breaking down adviser silos and ensuring that good customer outcomes and suitability remain front and centre as the market continues to grow.”

One of the main reasons more advisers do not speak to their clients about equity release is that they are not suitably qualified or knowledgeable enough to advise on the product set.

Stephanie Charman, CEO of the Association of Mortgage Intermediaries, said for these advisers, the solution lies in referring the business to an expert.

She commented: "We need to look at the future of the later life sector — that's not just lifetime mortgages; that is the broad later life sector. We need to break down the barriers. My personal view is you need to signpost: if it's not within your wheelhouse of advice, you need to signpost and refer accordingly."

Roland Whyte, CEO of Nokkel, said property must become central to retirement planning conversations.

He explained: "Holistic wealth has to be the starting point for anybody planning for retirement. Given the scale of property wealth, the tax backdrop and a range of other factors, the home can no longer be overlooked in any decumulation strategy. There is still significant progress to be made on education and fully integrating property into the plan. Technology has a crucial role to play in helping integrate property into retirement planning and in connecting the wider ecosystem needed to support it.”

Will Hale, CEO of Air, said that while there is plenty of work to do, he is seeing signs that some advisers are starting to acknowledge the importance of holistic advice.

He concluded: “Those of us operating in a lifetime mortgage market have been pushing this idea of holistic advice and the need for all advisers – whether it's mortgage advisers, wealth managers or IFAs – to consider all the products available for a long time.

“I think we are starting to see some traction. A lot of the mainstream advisers or wealth managers I speak to clearly want to engage with the sector. That’s a real positive because too often the lifetime mortgage sector has been talking in a bit of an echo chamber.”