Millions of homeowners face higher mortgage rates

More than 4 million homeowners — half the total — face higher mortgage repayments as they refinance on to deals on higher rates in the next three years, the Bank of England has warned.
This includes some unlucky borrowers, an estimated 1 million to 1.5 million homeowners, who have already moved on to a higher rate once and will need to refinance again on yet more expensive terms by the end of 2027.
For others, the pain of higher mortgage rates will be new. The Bank said that 37 per cent of fixed rate mortgage holders had not needed to re-fix their deal since borrowing costs started to rise in late 2021.
• ‘My new mortgage came with a £200,000 fee’
This will result in 2.7 million homeowners, equivalent to 31 per cent of all mortgages, moving on to a deal of more than 3 per cent for the first time, according to the Bank. An estimated 420,000 borrowers will suffer a rise in their monthly payments of more than £500, it added.
A further 2.4 million mortgage holders who had already moved on to a more expensive deals in recent years, however, will start to feel the pressures on their household finances ease thanks to cuts to interest rates that the Bank has implemented since the summer.
Regulators disclosed their assessment of the home loans market in the Bank’s latest financial stability report, in which policymakers judged that British households and businesses were “likely to remain resilient in aggregate”.
They warned, however, that the wider risks to the financial systems were worsening.
“Global risks associated with geopolitical tensions, global fragmentation and pressures on sovereign debt levels remain material,” the Bank’s financial policy committee warned in the twice-yearly report.
“Uncertainty around, and risks to, the outlook have increased. As the UK is an open economy with a large financial sector, these risks are particularly relevant to UK financial stability.”