102-year-old man given 25-year mortgage

A 102-year-old man has become the oldest person in the UK to be given a new mortgage.

The pensioner, from East Sussex, has been granted a 25-year, £200,000 mortgage even though it will take him until he is 127 to pay it off.

If he does live that long, he will enter the Guinness Book of Records - the world's oldest person ever died at the age of 122. On average, men in the UK men only live until 75.

The man, who has not been named, faces monthly repayments of £958 a month.

He plans to pay it off through rental income and make money from the property's increase in value.

It is believed the pensioner sees the buy-to-let market as a way to easy money, despite growing warnings that high property prices make it difficult to profit from renting out homes.

Most banks and building societies have an age limit of 75. But a number of lenders, including the Mortgage Trust, Bristol and West, Woolwich, and Preferred, impose no age restriction.

He secured his loan through Mortgages for Business, a Kent firm that has helped hundreds of elderly people buy homes.

The firm's spokesman Jonathan Moore told the Daily Mail: "Even five years ago, anybody over 65 would have been hard-pushed to get any kind of mortgage.

"But some lenders have eased their restrictions to keep in step with the market. This 102-year-old has taken this interest-only, buy-to-let mortgage out as an investment in partnership with his family and his repayments are being covered by his tenant.

"It's not risk-free if property prices and rental income suddenly fall. But look at the South-East - there's a great property market.

"Rental is absolutely booming because the South-East hasn't got enough houses. Many over-65s take out mortgages to invest in buy-to-let because the pensions crisis has left them with insufficient income."

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