According to data from mortgage servicing platform Eligible AI, 9% of Londoners with a mortgage expect to miss a payment in the next six months
Mortgage-holders in London are more than twice as likely to expect to miss a payment in the six months, compared to those in the rest of the UK, reveals a new survey.
According to data from mortgage servicing platform Eligible AI, 9% of Londoners with a mortgage expect to miss a payment in the next six months. That compares to 4% across the UK as a whole.
That would suggest over 150,000 Londoners missing payments in the coming months.
Additionally, 39% of Londoners cited mortgage payments as a significant cause of financial-related stress besides a soaring cost-of-living and burdensome energy bills.
The survey also found that 12% of London’s mortgage holders do not understand the terms of their mortgage as they do not communicate with their lender.
Zahra Hassan, co-founder of Eligible, commented: The fundamental problem is that mortgages are a financial product that customers take out only once every 3-5 years. This means that they are not regularly engaging with their mortgage and are not in the loop of what all their options are.
In a wider sense, increasing interest rates, along with higher energy and living costs, heighten vulnerability to default. Nonetheless, the key factor that pushes someone from financial strain to actual default is their lack of awareness about the range of options that their bank could have offered to temporarily ease their financial burden, especially on their biggest financial obligation – their mortgage.
The findings come as a number of lenders have raised their mortgage rates in recent months. Coventry Building Society is the latest to do hike rates, following HSBC and Santander. However Halifax has bucked the trend by reducing rates.