Moving home with a Help to Buy equity loan

Existing English Help to Buy equity loans could originally be up to 20% of the purchase price, or up to 40% in London. Redemption is based on the applicable valuation and sale rules, rather than simply the original cash amount. A change in the property's value can change what you repay; follow the loan administrator's current redemption process.

What you repay, worked through

Bought at £300,000 with a 20% equity loan of £60,000, now selling at £360,000: you repay 20% of £360,000, which is £72,000. With a mortgage balance of, say, £200,000 and selling costs of around £5,000, the sale leaves roughly £83,000 toward the next purchase. That figure, not the headline price gain, is the budget for the next move, and we calculate it before you list the property.

The redemption process

Repaying the equity loan needs a market valuation from a RICS (Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors) surveyor, instructed and paid for by you, typically valid for three months. The scheme administrator charges an administration fee, and your solicitor handles the redemption alongside the sale completion. The valuation expiry is the trap: chains commonly run past three months, and an expired valuation has to be refreshed, which can delay completion. We diarise it with your solicitor so the dates hold.

Interest is rising on the loan

The equity loan is interest-free for the first five years. From year six, interest starts at 1.75% on the equity loan and rises each year in line with the scheme terms. For many owners the start of interest, on top of monthly mortgage payments, is exactly the trigger to move or to clear the loan. If you are approaching year five, the timing of the move has a real cost angle and we put numbers on it.

The next purchase is a standard mortgage

The scheme is closed, so the next home is bought with an ordinary mortgage. Your deposit is the net equity from the sale plus any savings, and affordability is assessed fresh on current income, commitments and rates. The 20% repayment is what most movers underestimate: it can shrink the next deposit enough to change the loan-to-value (LTV, the percentage of the price you borrow) band you land in, and with it the rate.

Repaying without moving

If the move itself is optional, the alternative is remortgaging to repay the equity loan and staying put. That route has its own page under our remortgage hub, and we compare it against moving when both are on the table.

Common pitfalls we see

Instructing the RICS valuation too early and watching it expire mid-chain. Forgetting the administration fee and the valuation cost in the moving budget. Assuming you repay the £60,000 you borrowed rather than the percentage of current value. Each one is cheap to avoid and expensive to discover late.