Many people are reaching retirement age still owing huge sums of money, according to research that revealed 2.24 million over-65s in Britain had debts totalling £8.42bn.
Research by Economic Lifestyle, the retirement housing and finance specialist, found 588,000 people aged 65 or over had mortgages worth £6.08bn.
About 1,150,000 had credit card debts, owing £952m between them, while 14,000 had a personal credit card debt of more than £10,000 and 23,000 had personal loans of £20,000 or more.
Mark Neal, group operations director at Economic Lifestyle, said: "The growing personal debt mountain is affecting people of all ages.
"However, what is particularly worrying is that so many older people are taking on considerable debt because many will find it difficult to pay this off as they are no longer working."
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