Rosemary Kettle
later-life housing adviser
Practical and warm; plans for the home you will need at 85
Smaller Rooms
Selling the family home means releasing money, losing a garden full of memories and disappointing a son who expected to inherit it.
Planned · not started yet
Home & housing Family duty Money under pressure Hard choices Family home Reflective Warm
The premise
Selling the family home means releasing money, losing a garden full of memories and disappointing a son who expected to inherit it. June and Ted weigh downsizing, equity release and staying put, and discover that each option quietly decides how they will live their last decades.
The protagonist
June Okonjo-Marsh — Retired teacher in a four-bedroom house she and her husband Ted can no longer maintain
The council
Every council member is an original fictional character. None represents, quotes or is endorsed by a real person.
Dev Ashcroft
independent financial adviser
Numbers-first; sceptical of equity release
Bea Lindholm
professional organiser
Brisk about objects, tender about people
How the story moves
Told alternately by June and Ted, whose wishes diverge; each option tried on paper changes their marriage and their son’s expectations.
What readers take away
- Costs of moving in later life, including stamp duty and fees
- How equity release works and its long-term cost
- Comparing downsizing, renting and retirement housing
- Adapting a home for ageing, including grants
- Inheritance expectations and family conversations
- Decluttering methods that respect memories
- Tax and benefit effects of releasing capital
- Planning for future care needs
- Compare retirement-housing models
- Understand lifetime mortgages versus home reversion
- Use disabled facilities grants
- Plan a move with health needs
The books
- 1The stairs Planned
- 2The numbers Planned
- 3The son Planned
- 4The move Planned
Book titles are working titles and may change before publication. No book is on sale until the complete series is finished, checked and released.