How much do I actually owe on my Help to Buy loan right now?

Help to Buy equity loans were taken as a percentage of your property's value at completion, typically 20% outside London or up to 40% in London, under the scheme before it closed to new applicants in February 2023 (Homes England, 2023). Around 380,000 households used the scheme between 2013 and 2023, and the vast majority are still repaying (Homes England, 2023). Critically, that loan was never a fixed £ amount sitting on a mortgage statement. It was, and remains, a share of your home. For the first five years after completion, no interest is charged at all. That's exactly why so many owners stop thinking about the loan altogether, until they try to sell, staircase, or remortgage and discover the figure they expected isn't the figure Homes England or their loan administrator quotes back to them.

If you've been assuming your repayment figure is roughly what you borrowed in £ terms, that assumption is probably costing you an accurate picture of your own equity, and the calculator above exists precisely to close that gap.

Why does a rising house price increase what I owe, even though I've never missed a payment?

This is the single most misunderstood mechanic in the entire scheme. The percentage of your equity loan never changes on its own; the amount you owe in pounds is recalculated against your property's current market value, not the value on the day you completed. If your home has gone up in price, the percentage you owe stays identical, but the pound figure it represents rises with it. You benefit from house price growth on your own share of the equity, but Homes England benefits from exactly the same growth on its share.

Worked example

You bought a £240,000 home with a 20% Help to Buy equity loan (£48,000 at completion). Five years later, an independent valuation puts the property at £290,000. Your loan is still 20%, but 20% of £290,000 is £58,000. You owe £10,000 more than you borrowed, purely from house price growth, despite a spotless payment record and zero interest charged.

If your local market has moved since you completed, run your current estimated value through the calculator now rather than budgeting against your original £48,000 (or equivalent) figure. The gap catches most owners off guard at the worst possible moment: mid-sale.

When does interest start, and how does the annual escalator work?

You pay no interest at all for the first five years after completion. From year six, interest kicks in at 1.75% of your original loan amount in £, not the current value, which is the one part of the calculation that does still anchor to your completion-day figure. From year seven onward, that 1.75% rate increases annually by RPI plus a margin. Most loans from the original scheme use RPI + 1%, but a number of loans taken from 2018 onward use RPI + 2% instead, so the exact figure depends on when you took out your loan and what your individual mortgage offer specifies.

Because RPI itself moves year to year, the interest charge doesn't rise in neat, predictable steps: it compounds against whatever inflation has done. A borrower on RPI + 1% and a borrower on RPI + 2%, both six years into an identical loan, can end up with noticeably different annual interest bills.

Given that escalator uncertainty, if you're within a year or two of hitting year six, it's worth confirming your exact margin with your loan administrator before you fix your household budget around an estimate.

Staircasing, full repayment or remortgaging: which fits your position?

Owners generally have three routes once they decide the loan needs addressing. You can repay the entire percentage in one lump sum, which requires an independent RICS valuation and typically clears the loan outright. You can "staircase": repaying a portion, commonly in 10% chunks, which reduces both your future interest exposure and the share Homes England takes from any future sale. Or you can remortgage your main mortgage to raise enough additional borrowing to clear the equity loan in one move, folding it into a single monthly payment rather than running two obligations in parallel.

Each route has a different cost profile. A full repayment stops the interest clock entirely but needs the cash or the borrowing capacity to do it in one go. Staircasing is more flexible but still needs a formal valuation each time. Remortgaging to clear it makes most sense when your loan-to-value has improved enough to unlock a competitive rate, which is worth checking against a mortgage repayment calculator before you approach a lender, and against our remortgage prep guide if your current fixed rate is due to end soon.

If you're already remortgaging for other reasons in the next 12 months, that's usually the cheapest moment to fold in a Help to Buy repayment too, rather than treating it as a separate transaction with its own valuation and legal fees.

What this means for you

Run your numbers through the calculator above before you assume anything about what you owe. The gap between your original loan and today's repayment figure only ever widens while prices are rising, and it narrows or reverses if your local market has softened. Most people who run these numbers end up doing one of two things: staircasing a chunk while their existing mortgage is unremarkable and rates are workable, or timing a full repayment to coincide with a remortgage they were already planning to avoid paying for two separate valuations. If you're within five years of year six and haven't confirmed your specific interest escalator, the maths points toward getting that answer in writing from Homes England or your loan administrator now, not when the first interest charge lands. For a broader view of your options, our next home deposit calculator covers the equity maths that usually sits alongside this decision if you're planning to move rather than stay.