In April, the Help to Buy Scheme enacted by the government to assist first time buyers onto the property ladder will turn five. This will be marking the end of the early adopters of the scheme’s mortgage terms that had five year fixed rate mortgage terms. At the end of the terms, the buyers will either remortgage or will be moved to their lender’s standard variable rate (SVR).

The SVR is a risky situation for homeowners that do not have a lot of flexibility in their household budget. Lenders can and do increase their SVR with little warning to borrowers and for some that could cause financial hardship. In the face of warnings of another standard base interest rate increase in May by the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC), sitting in a SVR situation might not be ideal for a homeowner.

Help to Buy borrowers will not only be facing the end of a five year fixed mortgage, but will also be faced with interest payments being activated with their repayments. The factors begin to mount up against those that first took advantage of the Help to Buy scheme in 2013 making a remortgage all the more attractive.

Some lenders do not offer remortgage opportunities to those that have a Help to Buy mortgage.

It will be important that when looking to remortgage that homeowners speak to remortgage lenders and mention that their current mortgage situation involves a Help to Buy equity loan that will need to be considered. In some cases, a homeowner may have enough equity built up in their property that they could remortgage and release enough cash to pay off the Help to Buy loan in part or whole, while securing a low fixed interest rate for the years to come on the outstanding mortgage.

A remortgage broker could be helpful to Help to Buy homeowners as they work with many lenders at one time and will be quite aware of which lenders are keen to offer remortgage deals to Help to Buy borrowers, even for the most complicated situations.

April is expected to be a busy month in remortgaging with the warning of a possible increase in interest rates, so those homeowners that used Help to Buy in 2013 might want to consider the time element in processing a remortgage to completion with a remortgage broker or lender. Shopping around for a deal might need to be done sooner rather than later. Thinking ahead and being assertive in finding the right remortgage will offer peace of mind in finding a solution in the face of the big changes in store financially for the first wave of Help to Buy borrowers.