Ask the expert: Should I retire when I still have a mortgage?

Mortgage worries overriding retirement excitement? Marianna Hunt is back to take a look over whether retiring while still owing money on your mortgage is a bad idea. I want to retire at 55, which is in five years’ time. However, I still have nine years of repayments on my mortgage. I think I could just about afford the repayments for those first four years of retirement, but it might be a squeeze. Is it a bad idea to retire while still owing money on my mortgage? Marianna writes: As more people get on the property ladder later in life, this is likely to become an increasingly common dilemma. Can you afford to retire with a mortgage, or will you need to keep working while paying it off? I completely understand why you would not want to delay your planned retirement date. If you continue working until your mortgage is paid off, you will have missed out on four years of early retirement. At age 59, who knows if you will feel as active and healthy as you do at 55. There s n