Banks: Bridging Finance

Debate between Lord Best and Lord Newby

Monday 20th October 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Newby]

There is a problem with how banks deal with older people who are looking to move, but it has nothing to do with bridging finance in most cases. It is simply about transferring the mortgage from one property to another. The mortgage market review suggested that banks should have some discretion in those circumstances so that people would be able to remortgage on the same terms that they had before, but unfortunately, as in a number of other cases, the banks are interpreting this in a very rigid way, which is undoubtedly disadvantaging some people.

[Lord Best (CB)]

My Lords, will the Minister look out for a report on affordable downsizing, due to be released on 19 November by the APPG on this subject, which I chair? Will he note in particular the central recommendation that, like the right to buy for young people, we get a right to move for those of us in our extended middle age?

[Lord Newby]

I certainly look forward to reading the report. I will be fascinated to see how that right might be translated into reality for a lot of people, but some local authorities are beginning to look imaginatively about how you help people to move. Very often, one of the big problems is just the physical challenges of sorting out the move, switching the bills and so on. Redbridge, for example, and a number of other authorities have started to provide a service to people who wish to downsize, to help them with all those mechanical arrangements which, for some people, prove to be the last straw in stopping them from downsizing.