Support for Mortgage Interest

If you receive certain income-related benefits, you may be entitled to some help with the interest payments on loans secured on your home. Normally, you will have to serve a 39 week waiting period before you will start to receive this financial help and not all loans will qualify for this financial assistance. This financial assistance is called Support for Mortgage Interest. From 6 April 2018 any payments made to help homeowners with the interest charges on loans or mortgages will be in the form of an interest-bearing loan and may have to be repaid. 

The Bank of England has announced the first rise in interest rates since 2007. After the Brexit referendum last June, the Bank of England reduced the cost of borrowing to 0.25%, but this announcement brings the interest rate back up to 0.5%. The people who will be most adversely affected by this increase are those households with variable rate mortgages. If you have a variable rate mortgage, your payments will increase because of this change.