Aviva equity release: what it offers

Aviva equity release means the lifetime mortgages Aviva provides through Aviva Equity Release UK Limited. Its range includes a lump-sum and a drawdown lifetime mortgage, available from age 55 on properties worth at least £75,000. Aviva does not give equity release advice itself, so plans are arranged through an FCA-regulated adviser.

Later Life Finance Guide is not affiliated with Aviva and does not recommend any lender or provider. This page summarises publicly available information; products and criteria change, so check the current details with the provider or an FCA-regulated adviser.

Aviva equity release: the products available

Aviva's lifetime mortgages include Lifestyle Max, a lump-sum lifetime mortgage paid as a single amount at the start, and Lifestyle Flexible Advantage, a drawdown lifetime mortgage that provides an initial release plus a cash reserve for further withdrawals, with interest charged only on money actually released. Aviva publishes the product detail for both mainly on its adviser-facing site.

Both are lifetime mortgages, the form of equity release where a loan is secured against your home rather than a share of the property being sold. For how lifetime mortgages and other forms of equity release work more broadly, see our equity release guide.

What these plans cost over time

With no monthly payments, interest on either plan is added to the loan and then charged on itself, so the amount owed grows over time and can grow quickly. That reduces what is left in the estate, and money released can affect means-tested benefits. With Lifestyle Flexible Advantage, money left in the cash reserve is not charged interest, but each withdrawal adds to the debt. Our guide to equity release costs shows how compounding builds up.

Age and property criteria Aviva publishes

Aviva publishes minimum age and property criteria for its lifetime mortgages. Applicants must be aged 55 or over, and on a joint application both applicants must be 55 or over.

The property must be worth at least £75,000, used as the applicant's main residence, based in the UK excluding the Channel Islands and Isle of Man, and not left unoccupied for more than six months of the year.

Features and protections Aviva describes

Aviva states that its plans include a no negative equity guarantee, meaning the amount owed should not exceed what the home sells for, provided the plan's terms and sale conditions are met. Aviva also offers an optional inheritance protection guarantee, which ring-fences a percentage of the property's value for the estate, whatever the loan grows to; in return, the amount that can be borrowed is lower.

Aviva says voluntary partial repayments are allowed without an early repayment charge, capped at 10% of the amount borrowed each year. Repayments can slow the growth of the debt, but they rely on having income or savings to spare.

Aviva also describes downsizing protection, which lets a customer move to a home that does not meet Aviva's lending criteria and repay without an early repayment charge, provided the plan has run for at least three years.

Our guide to the equity release negative equity guarantee explains how this type of protection works across the market.

How Aviva equity release is accessed

Aviva does not provide equity release advice directly: it stopped running its own advisory service on 1 July 2013. Customers can use their own financial adviser, find one independently, or ask Aviva to refer them to one.

Aviva's lifetime mortgages are provided through Aviva Equity Release UK Limited, which is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority under firm reference number 310433.

Aviva is listed as a member of the Equity Release Council, the industry body whose standards include the no negative equity guarantee.

Our equity release providers hub lists UK providers A–Z.

Questions to ask an adviser about an Aviva plan

If an Aviva lifetime mortgage is being discussed, two questions follow directly from the features above:

• If I later moved to a home Aviva will not lend on, would downsizing protection apply, and what early repayment charge would there be within the first three years?
• If I used the voluntary repayment allowance of up to 10% a year, how would that change the amount owed over time?

Our list of equity release adviser questions to ask first covers the wider questions that apply to any lifetime mortgage, and our guide to finding a regulated equity release adviser explains what to check before choosing one.

Next step: speaking to an FCA-regulated adviser

Later Life Finance Guide is not affiliated with Aviva and does not recommend any lender or provider. This page summarises publicly available information; products and criteria change, so check the current details with the provider or an FCA-regulated adviser.

Equity release requires advice from an FCA-regulated adviser, who can compare it with other options for your circumstances. Product details were checked on 26 September 2026.