Support for Mortgage Interest (SMI)
What you'll get
If you qualify for Support for Mortgage Interest (SMI), you’ll usually get help paying the interest on up to £200,000 of your loan or mortgage.
However, you can only get up to £100,000 if either:
- you’re getting Pension Credit
- you started claiming another qualifying benefit before January 2009 and you were below State Pension age at that time
If you’re already getting SMI and move to Pension Credit within 12 weeks of stopping your other benefits, you’ll still get help with interest on up to £200,000.
The interest rate used to calculate the amount of SMI you’ll get is currently 3.16%.
Example
You have £250,000 of your mortgage left to pay and you’re eligible for SMI for up to £200,000.
At the current SMI interest rate, you’ll get a loan of 3.16% of £200,000 across a year. This is £6,320 a year or £526.66 a month.
What you’ll pay back
SMI is paid as a loan. You’ll need to repay the money you get with interest when you sell or transfer ownership of your home (unless you’re moving the loan to another property).
If you want to pay the loan back more quickly, you can also make voluntary repayments.
Find out more about how you repay your SMI loan.
How SMI is paid
SMI is normally paid direct to your lender.
You can ask to stop getting SMI at any time by contacting the office that pays your benefit.
When payments can start depends on what benefit you’re claiming.
If you get Pension Credit
Payments can start from the date you start getting Pension Credit.
If you get Universal Credit
Payments can start if you’ve got Universal Credit for 3 months in a row.
If you move to Universal Credit within a month of another benefit ending, payments can start when you’ve spent 3 months in total getting that previous benefit and Universal Credit.
If you get Income Support, income-based JSA or income-based ESA
Payments can start when you’ve claimed for 39 weeks in a row.