Endowments on a house are normally a form of mortgage, whereby the mortgage payments are split, such that one part pays the interest of the capital sum of the house, and the remainder goes towards an investment, which should pay off the capital sum on maturity.
As an example � let�s say you buy a house for �100K on a 25 year endowment mortgage. At the end of the 25 years, you still owe �100K for the house, but your investment should have grown to at least �100K to pay off the mortgage. The reason they became so popular was that back in the 80�s, people�s endowment investment performed so well, that their investment returned over 50% more than predicted � netting someone with a 100K mortgage with a nice payout of over �50K. Then things went bad in the investment market, with investments not even covering the house price � leaving people with a mortgage short fall at the end of the mortgage period.
Most people with an endowment mortgage ending in the next 5 years or so, are very likely to see a mortgage short fall � what I don�t understand is how the mortgage was paid off years ago, when it should be paid off out of the endowment investment proceeds at maturity.
Are you sure that it is an endowment policy on the house?