Are 25-year UK mortgages a thing of the past?

Younger homebuyers are turning to ultra-long loans, prompting fears over the risk to their finances and the wider economy

For a long time the traditional length of a UK mortgage has been 25 years, but runaway house prices and, more recently, dramatically higher borrowing costs are prompting more and more people to go long" on their home loans.

On Monday, the former pensions minister Steve Webb revealed that younger homebuyers were increasingly being forced to gamble with their retirement prospects by taking on ultra-long mortgages lasting beyond the end of their working life.