Many first-time buyers who purchased their home through Help to Buy are now facing mortgage arrears, it is revealed, as a minister pours cold water on a revival of the scheme.

The number of FTBs who used the Government’s Help to Buy programme but are now behind with their home loan payments, runs into the thousands, the Daily Telegraph reports.

Meanwhile, housing minister Rachel Maclean told the Conservative party conference that Help to Buy “risks inflating [house] prices”.

Ditched

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak was reported to be interested in reintroducing Help to Buy a few months ago.

The programme which gave first-time buyers an interest free loan to help them meet the asking price for a property, was ditched in October last year.

But some FTBs have had to sell up and rent again, five years into the scheme as the interest-free period ended.

Households in arrears numbered 4,854 from January to July this year, up from 2,413 last year, according to Homes England data obtained by The Telegraph.

If we incentivise through Help to Buy … that’s great for those people, but it inflates the prices.”

Maclean told a fringe meeting at the Conservative party conference: “If we incentivise through Help to Buy, First Homes [for new build homes], or any of these schemes, that’s great for those people, but it inflates the prices. Demand has to be balanced with the supply side.”

Labour has promised a ‘new deal for first-time buyers’ including no stamp duty on the first home, a guarantee of ‘first dibs’ on new homes built in the area, and 100,000 discount ‘first buy homes’.