Support for Mortgage Interest (SMI)
Eligibility
To be eligible for a Support for Mortgage Interest (SMI) loan, you need to be getting one of the following qualifying benefits:
- Income Support
- income-based Jobseeker’s Allowance (JSA)
- income-related Employment and Support Allowance (ESA)
- Universal Credit
- Pension Credit
Contact the relevant office to check if you’re eligible for SMI. There’s no credit check.
You can start getting the loan:
- from the date you start getting Pension Credit
- after you’ve claimed Income Support, income-based JSA or income-based ESA for 39 weeks in a row
- after you’ve got Universal Credit for 3 months in a row or you moved to Universal Credit within a month of another benefit ending and you’ve spent 3 months in total getting these benefits
If you stopped getting SMI because you stopped getting a qualifying benefit
You’ll start getting SMI again straight away if:
- you stopped getting Universal Credit but you started getting it again within 6 months
- you stopped getting Pension Credit and you were moved to Universal Credit
- you stopped getting Income Support, income-based JSA or income-based ESA, and you applied for Universal Credit within a month
Otherwise, you’ll have to wait the normal period before getting SMI again.