Nearly 100,000 fewer people are locking themselves into new mortgage deals before their current deal reaches maturity, data from the Financial Conduct Authority has revealed.
The FCA’s latest Mortgage Charter Update found between November 2024 and January 2025 around 280,000 mortgages locked into a new deal up to six months ahead of maturity.
This is a decrease on the 377,000 lock-ins between August and October 2024.
However, the data pointed out that January was an outlier within its own three month block as 115,779 mortgages locked in ahead of maturity in this month compared to just 70,786 in December and 93,908 in November.
In addition, the number of mortgages that subsequently locked into an alternative deal fell from around 102,000 in August to October 2024, to around 27,000 in November 2024 to January 2025.
However, the data also found a decrease in the number of properties taken into possession within 12 months of a first missed payment.
Just eight properties were taken into possession in January compared to 12 the month before.
This also represented a fall on a yearly basis as the number of possessions stood at 16 in January 2024.
The data also reported that of the properties that were repossessed, firms report these were for customer-driven reasons, for example voluntary possessions or abandoned/vacant properties.
Meanwhile, mortgages switched temporarily to interest-only payments remained relatively stable during January, rising slightly to 5,011.
While this represented an increase on the previous month’s figure of 4,537 mortgages, it remains in line with the findings recorded in October and November 2024 which stood at 5,710 and 5,369 respectively.
Between July 2023 and January 2025, the monthly payments on around 236,000 mortgages in total were reduced as people switched to interest-only, or extended their mortgage term.
This represents around 2.7 per cent of regulated mortgage contracts.
The data also showed that only 744 term extensions were reversed, which could indicate that borrowers seeking a temporary reduction in their payments are more likely to opt for an interest-only period.
tom.dunstan@ft.com
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