Nearly half of mortgage holders now in Cost of Living trap as they struggle to pay the bills

Nearly half of mortgage holders in the UK are facing difficulties in keeping up with their bills and credit commitments, warns a leading debt help charity. A YouGov survey conducted for StepChange revealed that 45 per cent of borrowers are struggling to meet their financial obligations.

According to StepChange, 40% of mortgage holders are displaying signs of financial difficulty, while an estimated 10% are believed to be in "problem debt". Financial distress indicators include making only minimum repayments on debts, relying on overdrafts for the past three months, using credit or loans to make it to payday, falling behind on essential household bills, using credit to manage existing credit commitments, incurring late payment or default charges, missing regular monthly payments, and resorting to credit to cover essential household expenses.

StepChange defines "problem debt" as experiencing three or more of these circumstances. The release of these figures coincides with expectations of the Bank of England raising the base rate for the 13th consecutive time on Thursday.

With the base rate currently at 4.5%, there have been forecasts of a possible increase of 0.25 or even 0.5 percentage points, due to persistently high inflation. According to UK Finance, a 0.25 percentage point increase could result in an additional £23.71 per month for the average tracker mortgage payment, while a 0.5 point increase could raise it by £47.43. There are currently 639,000 outstanding residential tracker mortgages.

For those with standard variable rate (SVR) mortgages, a 0.25 percentage point increase could mean an extra £15.14 in monthly repayments, while a 0.5 percentage point increase could add £30.28. These calculations are based on the