Help from mortgage scheme will be severely restricted

Details of the homeowner mortgage support scheme announced by Gordon Brown last week have been released and fewer than 10,000 homeowners are likely to qualify. The critieria to qualify for the deferment of mortgage repayments for up to two years includes having a mortgage of less than £400,000; borrowers having no more than £16,000 in savings; or not be in receipt of mortgage rescue assistance. However, it has emerged that the UK’s eight biggest lenders have only agreed ‘in principle’ to the idea, while sub-prime lenders, considered responsible for half of all repossessions, will not join the scheme at all.