Mortgage help for aspiring homeowners

A MORTGAGE guarantee scheme aimed at helping aspiring homeowners with small deposits onto the property ladder will feature in next week’s Budget.

Chancellor Rishi Sunak plans to incentivise lenders to provide mortgages to first time buyers and current homeowners, with just 5 per cent deposits to buy properties worth up to £600,000.

The Government will offer lenders the guarantee they require to provide mortgages covering the remaining 95pc.

The Treasury said low-deposit mortgages have ‘virtually disappeared’ because of the economic impacts of the coronavirus pandemic.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson said: “I want generation rent to become generation buy and these 95pc mortgage guarantees help to deliver this promise.

“Young people shouldn’t feel excluded from the chance of owning their own home and now it will be easier than ever to get onto the property ladder.”

The scheme, which will be subject to the usual affordability checks, will be available to lenders from April.

It is based on the Help to Buy mortgage guarantee scheme.