Help to Remortgage

Published: 11/12/2013

Mortgage prisoners will soon be able to benefit from the Help to Buy scheme as new lender Aldermore pledges to allows customers to remortgage using the scheme.

Both Aldermore and Virgin Money announced plans will join to scheme this month with Aldermore confirming it will launch a two-year fixed rate from 16 December.

The pair join existing Help to Buy lenders RBS, NatWest, Halifax and HSBC. However Aldermore will be the first to allow remortgages under the scheme.

They will however not allow anyone to use the scheme in order to purchase buy to let property or second homes, nor will they allow existing Aldermore customers to remortgage onto a Help to Buy rate.

Lynne McCaffrey, Head of Property at Goldsmith Williams, comments:

“It is fantastic to see a lender catering for existing homeowners who, following the property crash, now find themselves ‘mortgage prisoners’.

“Until now Help to Buy, as the name suggests, has concentrated on providing assistance to wannabe buyers who have been priced out of the market largely due to the substantial deposit now required. However many existing homeowners are facing similar difficulties; having bought property pre-2007 they now have insufficient or even negative equity to remortgage.

“Recognising this growing problem Aldermore have reacted and clients with limited equity will soon be given ‘help to remortgage’.”

Content correct at time of publication