Leeds targets elderly

ONE of Britain’s biggest building societies wants to corner the mortgages-for-pensioners market.

Leeds Building Society was the first lender to offer interest-only retirement mortgages last summer when the products won approval from the City watchdog.

The loans let customers borrow cash against the value of their home and pay back just the interest while they are alive.

The rest is repaid when the borrower’s home is sold after they die or go into care. Leeds expects the loans to be increasingly popular. It made a £116.9m profit in 2018, £4m less than a year earlier.