Jeremy Pinwhistle wrote:

The loan was taken out over 7 years, meaning that she would have been 84
by the time she had paid it off.
It seemed irresponsible of a bank to allow such a loan?

Why is it irresponsible just because of her age? The only real
considerations are that she could afford the payments and that she
wouldn't abscond to Venezuela.

She must have wanted to borrow the money (do you know what it was
for?), and rather than trying to blame the bank for mis-selling,
cinsider that the bank may have taken some persuading to agree (was
the manager a friend of hers?). The only dubious thing about it
is that if it was indeed an ordinary personal unsecured loan, the
interest rate would have been on the steep side compared with it
having been secured on her house. It's worth looking into whether
a favourable rate was negotiated as if it had been secured. Could
it have been quasi-secured, e.g. the bank took custody of the deeds?

Bear in mind that the bank must have known there was a good chance
she might not survive the full 7 years. They knew that if that
happened, they would still get their capital back given that they
knew the estate would cover it. They also knew that her early death
would be to their own disadvantage, since they would lose out on the
interest in respect of the remainder of the term.