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About UK Mortgage Prisoners
UK Mortgage Prisoners is a non-profit organization that was established to assist homeowners who are trapped in their mortgage. The organization was founded due to the need for fair treatment of the Facebook group of mortgage prisoners who were struggling to make ends meet due to high, unaffordable interest rates.
Since then, UK Mortgage Prisoners has been working tirelessly to raise awareness about the issue and to lobby the government for change. Their efforts have resulted in the FCA's ruling in 2019 for a change in the affordability criteria for mortgage prisoners that enables mortgage prisoners to switch to better deals. This rule change was not as effective as hoped, resulting in continued campaigning.
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the setting up of APPG Mortgage Prisoners
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FCA working solutions group
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debates in House of Commons and Lords
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modified affordability regulatory change
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working relationship with Martin Lewis, Money Saving Expert
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Creating the project HOPE - Home Ownership Protection Enterprise with a record of significant positive results for individual Mortgage Prisoners via FOS casework and direct resolution with individual lenders.
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Currently, we have launched our Mortgage Reform policies, which have been presented to Bim Afolami, Economic Secretary to the Treasury prior to our meeting with him in January 2024. Our reform policies were presented to MPs at a briefing in Parliament on 27th February 2024.
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Parliamentary debate, second reading will be heard 14th June 2024
New
Free Energy Advice Service Now Available to Mortgage Prisoners
UK Mortgage Prisoners is delighted to announce the launch of a brand-new, free energy advice service created specifically for Mortgage Prisoners, in collaboration with sustainability charity Pure Leapfrog.
For years, mortgage prisoners have faced a punishing double burden, trapped on high mortgage payments with no way to remortgage onto a fairer rate, while often living in cold, draughty, inefficient homes they’ve had no financial freedom to improve. Mainstream fuel poverty support has consistently overlooked our situation — until now.
This service was built with mortgage prisoners, not just for us. Pure Leapfrog and UKMP ran workshops with our community to make sure the advice genuinely reflects our reality, and along with our mediation service HOPE (Home Ownership Protection Enterprise) helped shape it from the ground up.
What the service offers
Advisers provide free, personalised, one-to-one guidance on:
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Reducing your energy bills
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Tackling damp and mould
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Improving home comfort
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Practical, small-scale energy-saving measures
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Referrals to wider support, including boiler replacement funding, home energy efficiency upgrades, help with energy debt, and broader cost-of-living assistance
It’s already making a difference
One mortgage prisoner, Louise, who lives in a listed building and cares for a family member, contacted the service for help with draughty windows and doors. She’d also been told by her energy supplier that switching tariff before moving home would cost her a fee. Her adviser found official guidance confirming this fee shouldn’t apply, got written confirmation from the supplier, and helped Louise switch to a cheaper fixed tariff before the July price rise — locking in that rate for as long as she stays in the property. They also found charity funding to replace her front door entirely.
Louise told the team: “Thank you so very much for being so amazing and for finding solutions to something we have just accepted for so long now.”
Why this matters
Rachel Neale, UKMP’s Lead Campaigner, said.
"It is rare to sit in a room with an organisation that has made such efforts to understand so well the Mortgage Prisoner situation, past and present, and the wider repercussions, while, at the same time, treating individuals with such compassion and credibility. UKMP and our mediation service HOPE (Home Ownership Protection Enterprise) are delighted to have helped design and to collaborate with Pure Leapfrog on this project to provide a dedicated energy advice service which is designed to bring bespoke relief to Mortgage Prisoners burdened by the "fallout" from years of the financial trauma resulting from being trapped customers on high variable rates and/or historic interest only mortgages for over 15 years".
How to access the service
If you’re a mortgage prisoner, or you support one, you can get in touch:
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Call: 0114 299 9770
This service is free, confidential, and designed around your needs. Please share this with anyone in our community who could benefit — no one should have to face cold homes and high bills alone.
Reports
Through campaigning, parliamentary debates and meetings with relevant organisations it has been vital to produce our own reports to show evidence of the detrimental effects mortgage prisoners have been through and still are having to live with. Through surveys posted on the UK Mortgage Prisoner Facebook page we are able to obtain lived experiences from a wide range of mortgage prisoner members from across the UK.
March 2022
In November 2021 the FCA Mortgage Prisoners Review was presented to Parliament by the Economic Secretary to the Treasury, John Glen MP. This Review was announced by the Minister during the debate on the amendments proposed to the Financial Services Bill on 26th April 2021. The Review announced was to be of FCA data on mortgage prisoners, "to ensure that we have further detail on the characteristics of those borrowers who have mortgages with inactive firms and are unable to switch despite being up to date with their mortgage payments"
March 2021
For over a decade, Mortgage Prisoners have been confronted with insurmountable barriers that prevent them from escaping from extortionate interest rates, severe financial restrictions and mobility, and mental and physical issues caused by this Government made scandal. During this time, despite the relentless efforts of campaigners, the Government has not shown it has the will to solve the problems that it created, and the modified affordability criteria introduced by the FCA has helped only a handful of the 250,000 prisoners.
Sept 2021
This paper has been produced in response to the FCA paper Mortgage Prisoners Review: Terms of Reference published on 20 July 2021, and to support UK Mortgage Prisoner Action Group (UKMP) during their stakeholder meeting with the FCA to be held on 16 August 2021. Since the Mortgage Market Study, which was first published in December 2016, the FCA have maintained that there are 250,000 borrowers with ‘inactive firms’ but that “not all of these borrowers are mortgage prisoners”.
February 2021
This is one of many previous thematic reports on UK Mortgage Prisoners and the impact on them after paying crippling high interest rates for over a decade. Mortgage prisoners have paid for the iniquity of the banks after the global financial crash of 2008. While bankers were bailed out, mortgage holders were sold out and, ultimately, had their mortgage rates hiked and sold off to inactive vulture funds who are not regulated and do not pay tax in the UK. Many others have been exploited by active lenders too; however, this report shifts the lens onto the experiences of children and young people.
January 2020
This report presents research findings from a representative sample of mortgage prisoners who were surveyed in response to the FCA announcement that lenders are now allowed to use a different and more proportionate affordability assessment for customers who meet certain criteria.
March 2020
In March 2020, UK Mortgage Prisoners submitted a COVID-19 report to Government and subsequently to the Treasury Select Committee as evidence of the additional financial hardship and emotional stress mortgage prisoners would incur by the recent pandemic
June 2020
Our Key Workers Kelly Gynn is what we would refer to in this present climate as an NHS Hero……she is a Nurse. Kelly is also a Mortgage Prisoner. We asked Kelly to tell us what life is like for her working on the front line on a COVID NHS hospital ward and as a Mortgage Prisoner.