National Friendly Financial Solutions has launched a new mortgage service aimed at the over-50s looking for a main home mortgage.

The new phone-based service will sit alongside National Friendly Financial Solutions’ other business lines, which include will writing, pensions and retirement planning, tax efficient investment planning and savings, and estate planning.

Craig Richards, a mortgage adviser at national Friendly, said: “Our new mortgage service aims to meet the specific needs of the over-50s who may be looking to remortgage, take out a new home loan, help finance their children on the housing ladder or simply extend their existing mortgage beyond retirement age.

“Historically, lenders only granted a mortgage until the normal retirement age, but increasingly more and more lenders will now offer funding well into a person’s 80s. We have found demand for this style of lending is concentrated in the over-50s, a specialist market National Friendly Financial Solutions is very experienced in supporting.

“One of the most frequent requests amongst over 50s is for home improvement finance. Increasingly, people now want to stay in the communities where they have built up lifelong contacts, so the emphasis is shifting from buying a car or a new house to adapting the home, perhaps to look after a parent or even with an eye on their own needs later on. This kind of work could be financed via a mortgage, as costs can be substantially lower than some other forms of finance.”