The phrase selling half your house to the bank is not a standard financial product name, but it reflects a genuine question that many homeowners have about accessing the equity in their home without selling it outright or taking on new monthly debt. There are several products and arrangements that achieve something along these lines, though they work differently from a straightforward sale and come from different types of provider.

This guide explains the products that most closely match what people mean when they ask this question, how they work, and the key considerations for each.

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Home Reversion Plans

A home reversion plan is the product that most directly resembles selling part of your home. Under a home reversion, you sell a percentage or all of your property to a reversion provider, which may be a specialist financial services company rather than a high street bank, while retaining the right to continue living in the property rent-free for the rest of your life or until you enter long-term care.

For example, you might sell 50 percent of a property worth 300,000 pounds and receive a lump sum in return. The lump sum you receive will be considerably less than 50 percent of the current market value because the provider is deferring their ability to realise the value of their share until you die or vacate. The provider then receives their percentage of the sale proceeds when the property is eventually sold.

Who can access home reversion

Home reversion plans are a form of equity release and are available only to older homeowners, typically those aged 65 and above. They are regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority and, when provided by members of the Equity Release Council, include a no negative equity guarantee and the right to remain in the property for life.

Key considerations

The lump sum received is significantly less than the market value of the share sold, because the provider takes into account that you will live in the property for many more years before they can access their investment. The older you are, the higher the percentage of market value you typically receive. The share sold is lost permanently: your estate will only receive the remaining percentage of the sale proceeds when the property is sold.

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Lifetime Mortgages

A lifetime mortgage is the more widely used form of equity release. It does not involve selling a share of the property. Instead, you borrow a lump sum or drawdown facility secured on the property, with no monthly repayments. The loan and accrued interest are repaid from the sale of the property when you die or move into care.

The result from the homeowner's perspective is similar: you access a lump sum now and your estate receives less when the property is eventually sold. But the mechanism is a loan rather than a sale, and you retain 100 percent ownership throughout. Lifetime mortgages are available from age 55 and are the dominant form of equity release in the UK.

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Shared Ownership and Shared Equity

Shared ownership is most commonly associated with buying a property, where you purchase a share of a new build from a housing association and pay rent on the remainder. This is not a product for existing outright homeowners to release equity.

Shared equity schemes in the context of retirement housing sometimes allow older people to move to a new development and purchase a percentage of the property, with a housing provider retaining the remaining percentage. This is a specific arrangement related to specialist retirement housing rather than a general product for existing homeowners.

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What About Standard Banks?

High street banks do not purchase shares in residential properties. They lend money secured on properties through mortgages, including equity release products through lifetime mortgage subsidiaries in some cases, but the concept of a bank acquiring a beneficial interest in your home as an equity investor rather than a lender is not how UK retail banking operates.

The products that come closest to what this question is asking about, home reversion plans and lifetime mortgages, are provided by specialist equity release lenders rather than by mainstream high street banks in most cases, though some large financial groups have equity release subsidiaries.

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Summary

You cannot sell half your house to a bank in the way the question implies, as banks do not acquire ownership interests in residential properties as equity investors. The products that come closest to this concept are home reversion plans, where you sell a percentage of the property to a specialist provider while retaining the right to live there for life, and lifetime mortgages, where you borrow against the property's value without making monthly repayments.

Both are forms of equity release available to older homeowners, regulated by the FCA, and requiring independent financial advice before proceeding. They are suitable for specific circumstances, particularly for asset-rich but income-poor older homeowners who want to access their property's value without moving.