Retirement Life
12 November 2025
Lifetime Home helps Paul live well through life’s challenges
When life throws unexpected financial hurdles your way, retirement security can feel like it’s slipping out of reach. For Paul*, a retired policeman from Christchurch, the challenge came when his wife Anne* required full-time care.
“I was financing, fully, the hospital-level care for my wife in a rest home,” Paul explains. “Anne had been refused a subsidy from day one of her care. This decision was later proven to be mistaken, but by then I’d already paid more than four months of fees.”
Faced with significant, ongoing costs, Paul needed a way to manage these expenses without compromising his financial wellbeing or peace of mind.
Discovering Lifetime Home
One evening in mid-2024, Paul caught a brief mention of a new retirement income solution - Lifetime Home - online. It was the spark of hope he’d been looking for.
“I caught a glimpse of an interview about the concept. It seemed to me to be the way to meet our commitments without financial strain,” he says.
At that point Lifetime Home was mid-launch and Paul didn’t even know which company was offering the product.
“I made enquiries with Christchurch finance companies, and one of them eventually tracked down Lifetime for me. None of the local companies had ever heard of anything like it.”
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A perfect fit
Once Paul found Lifetime Retirement Income, the company behind Lifetime Home, things moved quickly. After years of planning and product development, Paul became Lifetime Home’s first customer.
“Once I’d located Lifetime, it was quick and easy to get the system up and running,” he says. “There were no problems at all.”
That clarity is a cornerstone of Lifetime Home’s design. Every customer receives independent legal advice before signing, and the structure is transparent. The equity exchanged, payments, and costs are all detailed upfront, meaning no surprises down the track.
Lifetime Home turned out to be exactly what Paul needed: a simple, transparent way to draw an income from his home without taking on debt.
“I was immediately interested in Lifetime’s solution as it fitted my situation perfectly,” Paul says.
“While Anne and I could just afford the costs of her care, Lifetime Home made it so easy to live well despite those costs.”
Living well, without financial worry
More than a year on, Paul says Lifetime Home has transformed his retirement life.
“I live very well, with no financial concerns,” he says. “I’ve even been able to develop and improve our family holiday home in the Catlins. That means I can provide a holiday location for the children and grandchildren far into the future.”
Better than the alternatives
Before Lifetime Home came along, retirees like Paul had limited options when they needed to access the value in their home. They could either downsize or take on a reverse mortgage.
Neither of those made sense to Paul.
“Anne and I had already downsized, and as for a reverse mortgage, forget it!” he says.
“Why would we pay interest on money that we’d already paid interest on when we were paying off our mortgage?!”
Lifetime Home offered something different — regular, predictable income payments based on selling a share of his home’s value, without the burden of accumulating interest. From day one, he knew exactly how much of his home he still owned and how much he’d receive.
Looking back on a life of service
Paul spent 37 years working in law enforcement, both in New Zealand and overseas, as well as serving for two decades as a Territorial Force soldier. After retiring, he stayed active in the community for many years through volunteer work with organisations like the Rannerdale War Veterans Home, the Police Credit Union, the Red Cross, and the Canterbury Regimental Association.
“I was happily involved in volunteer work for about 23 years until my wife’s decline in health,” he says. “I’m now trying to re-establish those connections again.”
That return to community life is part of what Lifetime Home has made possible, freeing Paul from financial stress so he can focus on the things that matter most.
Advice for others
Having experienced the ups and downs of retirement life, Paul has some words of wisdom for others approaching that stage.
“Plan well ahead of your retirement date, always remembering that your job is not you,” he says.
“Plan ahead for activities you really enjoy and transition to those the day your employment finishes.”
A solution built for Kiwis like Paul
Lifetime Home was designed for people exactly like Paul; homeowners who’ve worked hard to pay off their mortgage but have limited cashflow to provide a comfortable, secure lifestyle in retirement.
As Lifetime Retirement Income founder and managing director Ralph Stewart says: “For too long, we’ve thought of the family home as untouchable. But it’s also one of our biggest financial assets. Just as we use money in savings or investments to fund retirement, why not consider our homes in the same way?”
*Names have been changed to protect privacy. This article is for information purposes only and should not be considered financial advice. Homeowners interested in equity release should seek professional advice on whether Lifetime Home or a reverse mortgage is more appropriate for their individual circumstances.
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Written by:
Vanessa Glennie
Vanessa is Head of Communications at Lifetime Retirement Income. She’s an experienced investment writer, having spent more than a decade writing about financial markets in the global fund management industry.
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