Preventing homelessness for struggling homeowners. A call to re-introduce a mortgage rescue scheme in Wales
Jan 2023
Summary:
Shelter Cymru is increasingly worried about the impact of increased mortgage interest rates. The increased cost of mortgage payments is expected to cause severe financial difficulty for 220,000 households in the UK during 2023, putting them at risk of homelessness. Even before the recent interest rate increases, mortgage repossessions were on the rise in Wales and numbers are beginning to increase in Shelter Cymru’s caseload. In the past, Wales was at the forefront of using mortgage rescue to prevent hundreds of households from becoming homeless. We can also learn lessons from its successful use elsewhere in the UK. Dedicated capital funding from Welsh Government is required now to ensure that mortgage rescue can be re-introduced, at the scale and pace the cost of living crisis necessitates.
Research Area: interest rates, mortgage payments, mortgage rescue, mortgages, repossession
Type of publication: Briefing paper
Keywords: cost of living crisis, interest rates, mortgage payments, mortgage rescue, mortgages
