Enabling Choice: your questions, answered

You would usually need around 15 years of stipendiary service to be eligible to apply for the rental scheme and 5 years for Community Living.

There are some variances to this, though. For instance, for clergy couples, we can look at whether between them, they have undertaken 15 years of consecutive stipendiary service for access to the rental scheme. For ill-health retirees or in cases of death in service, a lower threshold would apply.

For more information, see the Retirement Housing section of this website or speak to one of our team.

We are also trialling a new online tool that allows you to explore the range of retirement housing possibilities that may be applicable to your circumstances – looking not just at length of service but other factors too.

Yes, if, you still had at least 15 years of stipendiary or pensionable service (within the clergy pension scheme). If in doubt, or want to discuss your particular situation further, please contact housingservices@churchofengland.org.

If you are living in one of our properties and want to make a move, please get in touch at housingservices@churchofengland.org.

We would be happy to talk you through your different options. We won’t start by assuming a home with us is the best option for a move later in life, particularly as depending on your circumstances (e.g. why you need to move, and to which area), more choices might be available with other providers (including some wonderful Christian housing charities that specialise in housing for older people). We will take the time to understand your needs and how best we can help.

All members of our pension schemes are able to access help in exploring different options with housing later in life, through our Housing Support service. This includes looking at options within our Community Living schemes, depending on where in the country you'd want to retire to.

We aren’t able to offer to cover the difference in living costs from moving from one area of the country to another. However, if someone is struggling financially in retirement, we might be able to offer help in other ways, through our Welfare Advice service. This includes helping you ensure that you receive all the state benefits you might be entitled to and exploring eligibility for various charities (including the Board’s own charitable grant scheme). To get in touch and talk about your individual situation, please contact housingservices@churchofengland.org.

We think there is a case for offering clergy a financial health check with an independent financial advisor once they are 10 years into ministry. For this idea to really make a difference, it would need to be zero or low cost for the cleric, with advisor fees funded as needed by the Church.

We are seeking feedback as to whether this is a helpful idea in encouraging earlier planning for retirement, with the view that this idea can form part of a proposal for future national Church resource allocation/funding decisions.

The offer of an individual conversation with a financial advisor could be made to all clergy at the 10-year mark, post ordination. Independent Financial Advice would by design be specific to the individual’s circumstances. Working out how this will be best resourced and delivered is our next step if feedback shows enthusiasm for this idea.

Home ownership isn’t for everyone, but from conversations with clergy colleagues, we know that home ownership is a real aspiration for some. The ideas we have set out seek to overcome some of the barriers to home ownership that particularly affect those in tied housing. These include the idea of a deposit contribution and access to mortgage products that are tailored to clergy circumstances (e.g. allowing consideration of the rental income from the property).

Whether these ideas are sufficient will depend on individual circumstances, as well as each individual’s attitude to taking financial risk and the responsibilities that come with home ownership.

We are also hoping through the full range of ideas to support and enable different choices for clergy, as best suits their circumstances.

These would be factors to consider as part of any decision by an individual to purchase a property. When looking at rent receivable and mortgage payments due, an individual would need to consider a range of factors, including maintenance, improvements, covering the cost of a vacant period between tenancies, agents’ fees, etc. A mortgage broker or financial adviser can help with this. Future maintenance costs and energy efficiency should also be important considerations in the purchase process. In respect of energy efficiency, there are also various government-backed incentive schemes which may be of use.

Some of the feedback we’ve already received shows an appetite for information sessions on being a good landlord, and this is something we will explore further with partners.

Not as far as we are aware.

However, as a general point, clergy circumstances/roles can mean extra explanations are sometimes required with mortgage providers. This is where it can be really helpful to approach brokers and independent financial advisors who understand clergy circumstances (and partly why we already have an existing arrangement with EFAS to offer that knowledge/expertise at discounted rates to clergy).

This very much depends on type of provider and your circumstances. For instance, some almshouse charities, will offer lifetime security to tenants who meet their criteria. Reforms are also currently being debated in Parliament that will give tenants in private sector arrangements more security of tenure.

We have some thoughts on this and will develop these in more detail if the overall idea is one on which we receive positive feedback. Specific thoughts on how best to organise this from the clergy perspective are welcome.

We seek to support everyone to retire to a part of the country that best suits their plans and circumstances. While the Board operates a national portfolio (at least in England), there are some areas where we have always struggled to buy property due to cost (e.g. London). Therefore, depending on where they want to retire to, we already work with applicants to look at a range of options to help them find a home that works for them for the long term.

We have put forward a question as to whether, in the future, Church homes should be located in more affordable areas as the price of property, also affects running costs (e.g. Council tax, rent etc.) and look forward to hearing feedback on this.

This is a difficult question to answer as individual situations vary significantly, e.g. the amount someone pays in rent can be affected by many different factors, including location, property size and value. The Board operates with a target rent model, which means rents for Church retirement homes are offered at a discount to the market.

The Board carefully considers how rents might increase each year. The Board usually looks at RPI each September as its reference point, but also considers the link to clergy pensions too.

Within the discussion material, we have asked if certain ideas should be means-tested. For instance, in providing a kick-start to saving, or help towards a housing deposit.

We haven’t yet worked out how such a means test might be carried out. We recognise that circumstances widely differ across households e.g. if you have children or dependents, or a working spouse/partner. Any means test will therefore need to be sensitively designed. If someone wants to explore home ownership with a bank or building society, they will also need to be prepared to go through affordability checks with those providers.

We are wary too of assuming that ‘one size fits all’ i.e. that everyone needs exactly the same level of help. Today’s retirement housing service already incorporates an element of means testing to ensure help is targeted to those who most need it, i.e. if you have sufficient savings to buy a home of your own, we will encourage you to explore that option with market providers rather than going into the Church’s rental scheme.

We use the word ‘customer’ to refer to all the people we serve. That’s not just those in receipt of pension (“pensioners”), but all the members of our pension schemes, and their spouses/partners. But if we just talked about ‘members’, that could get confusing due to the plethora of different arrangements within the schemes. So, when we need to use a collective term for those we serve, we generally default to ‘customers’. It helps instil the right culture in our team too – a customer is somebody we value and who we seek to serve well.

Yes, we would expect to offer support, training and guidance to Archdeacons, Directors of Ministry and others as part of introducing any new ideas/services.

We also want to make sure that information on where to turn for different financial planning questions is freely available, so clergy can find this as and when they need it.

Yes, we would expect to offer support, training and guidance to Archdeacons, Directors of Ministry and others as part of introducing any new ideas/services.

We also want to make sure that information on where to turn for different financial planning questions is freely available, so clergy can find this as and when they need it.

No. We want clergy to have the right support to help them make the best possible choice for their retirement. That is what these proposals are about – a broadening out of services, to support different choices that best suit the increasingly diverse range of clergy circumstances.

We also very much see the need for a continued directly provided retirement housing offer, even in offering choices to the Church about what that might look like for the future.

We recognise that there are clergy in the run up to retirement for whom fewer of these new ideas will be relevant (and who might be disappointed that these ideas have come too late to make a difference for them personally). The pace of change is a point we are seeking views on through this conversation. This is also something we will need to consider carefully as part of national Church resource allocation decisions.

It's virtually impossible to guarantee that any service will stand still, and not evolve over time. As a Board, we are constantly looking at how we adapt services to best meet changing needs and demand. We would also expect to continue to refine new services based on feedback over time.

Our hope though is that by starting conversations early, introducing new services and new connections for people to different housing options, might help clergy feel more in control over their future plans.

If you are planning to retire within the next few years, then please just get in touch with us as you normally would, by contacting housingservices@churchofengland.org.  

We currently welcome applications up to 5 years before retirement. Our team will then be able to help you look at different housing options that might suit your plans.

We are just at the beginning of our conversation with the Church about what the future might hold around support with retirement housing. The pace of change is a key consideration in those discussions.

Clergy usually have to retire from their Office by age 70 under Ecclesiastical Law, unless they get permission from a Bishop to continue in ministry.

The Normal Pension Age in the clergy schemes is age 65 or 68, depending on the tranche of benefits. This is shown on your benefit statement. It is possible to retire earlier or later than Normal Pension Age, but you cannot take your pension before age 55 (soon to be 57). You can run pension quotes for different retirement ages using the tool in our PensionsOnline service.

State pension age depends on year of birth.

It’s never too early to start thinking about retirement. Good places to start might include our retirement planning pages, which give you some things to think about, particularly related to pensions. We have also introduced an online tool recently that allows individuals to start exploring different retirement housing options.

We would also be happy to talk with you, if you get in touch at housingservices@churchofengland.org, although currently most of our services/guidance start from just five years out.

Some salaried positions come with housing allowances, others don’t, so it’s hard to provide a general answer here. We would be happy to talk through any individual circumstances that might be prompting the question.

We do currently provide access to discounted mortgage brokering for all members of our pension schemes at any point in their lives through Ecclesiastical Financial Advisory Services.

It's also worth noting that our Community Living schemes accept applications from a broader pool of clergy and church workers, than just those with mainly stipendiary service.

If you are thinking about becoming a homeowner, we would always recommend that you get some proper financial advice about your circumstances.

Last year, the Board entered into a partnership with Ecclesiastical Financial Advisory Services (EFAS), to provide pension scheme members with access to discounted independent financial advice. EFAS can help with advice on pensions matters, and also offer other services, including mortgage brokering.

Of course, you can use other firms too. Whoever you pick, it’s important to check they are properly regulated and are truly independent. For more information, on where to start in finding the right financial advice for you, you can check out our advice page or moneyhelper.org.uk.

We are genuinely listening in this conversation. We have set out a number of ideas and choices for the Church to consider, and will read every response we receive carefully – whether through our online survey or through these webinars.

These sessions are also being supplemented by a lot of other conversations with various groups throughout the Church to ensure we hear feedback from a diverse range of perspectives. Our aim is to find a consensus around the right way forward based on this feedback.

We hope to publish a report showing the key themes from everything we have heard in the first half of 2024.

We will then develop that into clear proposals, which we will then need to test again with different groups. We are still working out how best to do that. It might involve focus groups, or conversations with Dioceses, and Bishops etc. There will be engagement with Synod along the way. Those proposals will have a financial price tag to them, will need support of the broader Church. And even that won’t be the end of the conversation, as implementing new ideas might involve further reflections, testing and discussions with different groups.

More details on how the Church of England Pensions Board will use the information you share to help develop our services for the future can be found in our privacy policy.

The Board will consider all responses received carefully, to help inform its future thinking about how the Church can best support clergy with retirement housing over the coming decades. It might not be possible to respond to every response individually, but collective themes and next steps will be shared with respondents later this year.

No, the concepts and ideas presented could offer a bold change to the ways in which the Church supports clergy with retirement housing: moving from a single model of support to opening up a range of choices throughout ministry. These ideas are intended to be tested and refined through feedback, and if there is support for these ideas, there are lots of details to work through.

All the ideas set out here are for discussion. Some could be introduced comparatively quickly, while others will take longer; some will also be less relevant for those closest to retirement (and we are particularly mindful of those who, for whatever reason, felt compelled to sell property to enter ministry). 

There is also a resourcing question to be considered as part of future national Church resource allocations. All these factors and more will need to be considered to ensure a smooth transition – introducing new choices alongside continuing to support those about to retire.

The simple answer is ‘not very much’. None of what is being considered involves any change for existing residents. Enabling Choice is about how the Church might support future cohorts of clergy in developing and realising the best housing plan for their retirement.

If you are planning to retire in the next five years, and want to know how the Board can help with your retirement housing plan, you can visit our website or get in touch at housingservices@churchofengland.org.

The Board is required to operate the clergy pension schemes according to their Rules. The Rules and benefit structure are set by General Synod. Any such change would require consideration by Synod.