25-year mortgage for a man aged 102

A 102-year-old has been granted a 25-year, £200,000 mortgage. It will run until he is 127.

The pensioner, from East Sussex, is believed to be the oldest person in the UK to be granted a mortgage. The revelation was greeted with alarm by debt advisors.

He faces repayments of £958 a month on the interest-only loan and intends to pay them from rental income and make money from the property's increase in value over time.

He is said to want "to get into buy-to-let" and to become a late-in-life property entrepreneur.

The man, who has not been named, is one of thousands of pensioners, including many in their seventies and eighties, now borrowing huge sums of money to buy property.