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You and Yours: Retirement Debt, Help To Buy, Renting Out Your Car

Retirement Debt, Help To Buy, Western Isles Windfarms

28/03/2018

Retirement Debt, Help To Buy, Renting Out Your Car

BBC Radio 4 - You and Yours, Retirement Debt, Help To Buy, Renting Out Your Car

Retirement debt, Help to buy, Renting out your car while you are away on holiday.

How do you clear a big debt when you have retired and your income has shrunk? Plus the government's 'Help to Buy' scheme is five years old next month. How well has it worked?

How can you clear a big debt when you've retired and your income has shrunk? Research by Prudential suggests that one in five people planning to retire this year will be in debt. The amount owed by newly retired people has increased in recent years. On average, this year they will owe nearly £34,000. For some, this is mortgage debt, for others the money is owed to credit card or loan companies. But as your income falls on retirement, it becomes harder to pay off these outstanding debts. For people who own their home, equity release can be an option, but some complain that it is an expensive way to borrow. If you don't own your home, the options are even more limited. We hear one woman's experience of how easily debt can spiral out of control and an expert on retirement debt provides advice on how to manage your finances.

The government's "Help To Buy" scheme is five years old next month. It was set up to help people to buy their own home, and then, to move up the property ladder. More than 140,000 households have taken advantage of attractive loan deals offered through the scheme, but how well has the scheme succeeded in helping people who would otherwise have been unable to buy their own home?

Leaving your car in an airport car park can be a significant extra holiday expense, but a new service at Gatwick Airport allows holidaymakers to rent out their car to other people, while they are abroad. You pay the airport parking fee, your car is washed and prepared for rental, and if the company rents it out, then you get paid. We ask if the business model can really work, and why so many ideas from the "sharing economy" have not really taken off.

Producer: Jonathan Hallewell
Presenter: Winifred Robinson.

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