Homeowners Mortgage Support
The Government has released their latest initiative to help home owners who experience a temporary drop in income.
Housing minister, Margaret Beckett has announced that a support scheme to help struggling home owners remain in their homes is now in force. The Homeowners Mortgage Support (HMS) scheme allows eligible borrowers, that are suffering a temporary loss of income, to defer their mortgage interest repayments for up to two years.
What is the Homeowners Mortgage Support?
HMS has been set up to help people who are struggling to meet mortgage repayments, but whose finances are expected to stabilise in the near future. For example you may have lost overtime, had a cut in the hours you work or lost one of the part-time jobs you have.
Who qualifies for Homeowners Mortgage Support?
To qualify for the scheme you need to have had a temporary decrease in income and be unable to meet your monthly mortgage payments. Lenders may well stipulate other conditions, that you’ll need to meet.
Which lenders offer Homeowners Mortgage Support?
Many of the major high street lenders are offering their customers the scheme including Lloyds Banking Group, Northern Rock, Royal Bank of Scotland and Bradford & Bingley. Other lenders participating in the scheme include the National Australia Bank Group, parent of Clydesdale and Yorkshire Bank, and Cumberland Building Society.
Four other high street lenders - Barclays, HSBC, Nationwide, and Santander - have confirmed they will offer borrowers similar alternatives to the HMS but are yet to confirm what that will be.
A lot will be made of the fact that the banks to take up the initiative are mainly those that have been backed by the government recently and those that have opted out have not had to ask publicly for help. However, this scheme does represent some form of respite for any business owners who have experienced a drop in income as a result of the tougher trading conditions. It will be interesting to see what the lenders that have opted out of the scheme decide will be a more appropriate alternative.
To find out more about HMS click here.
