Payment holidays

What is a payment holiday?

A payment holiday is when you take a break from paying all or part of your monthly mortgage payment.

They can help you with short term or unexpected changes to your situation. These could be changes to your employment; maternity or paternity leave; or household or car costs.

We’ll recalculate your monthly payments at the end of the payment holiday and the amount you owe will go up. That’s because even though you miss payments due to the payment holiday, we will still add interest to your mortgage.

If you've made overpayments in the past 12 months then you could underpay instead of taking a payment holiday. You'll need to talk to us before you underpay.

Can I take a payment holiday?

You can apply for a payment holiday if:

it’s been over 12 months since you took your mortgage out with us, and you’ve not taken any additional borrowing in the last six months
you live in the property and it’s your main home
you’ve not taken payment holidays for more than six months in total and not taken one in the past three years. (This excludes payment holidays taken due to Covid-19)
the amount you owe on your mortgage is less than 75% of the value of your home

you’ve got a joint mortgage, everyone agrees to the payment holiday
your mortgage payments are up to date and have been for the last 12 months
you've made six months payments since taking a payment holiday due to Covid-19
your property isn’t owned jointly under a shared ownership scheme, for example with a local authority
you don’t receive support from the Department of Work and Pensions towards your mortgage payments

You could lose your home if you don’t keep up your mortgage repayments