Mortgage payment holidays
We’ll only consider a request for a mortgage payment holiday if your mortgage has flexible features and you’ve used our Choices feature to build up an overpayment reservoir.
How a payment holiday works
If your mortgage has Choices and you’ve built up an overpayment reservoir using that feature, you can apply for a payment holiday for a maximum of six consecutive months – or until your overpayment reservoir has been used up. You can also apply to make reduced payments until the overpayment reservoir has been used up.
We won’t be able to approve a request for a Choices payment holiday if any of the following apply:
- Your account is in arrears.
- Your mortgage has passed its term end date.
- Any of the account holders has been subject to bankruptcy proceedings or has entered an individual voluntary arrangement (IVA).
- You’re letting your property out without our agreement.
At the end of the payment holiday or period of making underpayments, we’ll recalculate your monthly payment and because the total amount you owe will have increased, it’s likely that your monthly payment will increase.
You won’t be able to request a payment holiday if your mortgage doesn’t have flexible features and you haven’t already built up a Choices overpayment reservoir.
If your mortgage has flexible features, it will have been explained in your original mortgage offer documents. If you’re not sure, or you want to know more about Choices, you can call us.
As an alternative to calling, you can also sign in to Self-Serve and send us a secure message. To find out more about how to register take a look at our Using Self-Serve page.
If you’re having problems making your mortgage payments
If you’re having problems making your mortgage payments we’ll try to help. We’ll need to assess your circumstances and your income and expenditure to work out how we can support you. Simply talking to us won’t affect your credit file. There’s more information about what to do next, and where you can find help on our Payment difficulties page.
