Support for Mortgage Interest (SMI) is a welfare benefit in the United Kingdom that entitles a person to help with their mortgage costs. The SMI is paid as a loan, which the person will need to repay with interest when he or she dies, sells or transfers ownership of their home. Before this date, SMI is paid as a benefit, which the beneficiary does not have to repay. It is usually needed to be getting, or treated as getting, a qualifying benefit to get SMI. There’s no guarantee that a person will get SMI for a mortgage or loan he or she takes out. To get SMI a person must be in receipt of one of the following benefits: Income Support income-based Jobseeker's Allowance income-related Employment and Support Allowance Pension Credit Those in receipt of Universal Credit may also be entitled to SMI. The waiting time for help increased on 1 April 2016 from 13 weeks to 39 weeks. The cost of the benefit was £205 million in 2017. With SMI ending in April 2018, saving the government about £170 million a year, the Department of Work and Pensions is offering a loan, secured on the recipient's property, a move criticised because it would put properties of people on low incomes at risk; the cessation affects about 124,000 people. Key Facts setting up the loan is charge-free a credit check is not required to get the loan regular payments are not needed as it is in the case of a normal loan – but if a person wants it, regular payments are possible interest is added to the total amount owed until the time loan is written off/paid back the loan is not acquired automatically the loan is secured against your home, when the home is sold or the ownership of the home is transferred to another person, then the loan must be paid back SMI cannot help to pay: the amount the person borrowed (only the interest on the mortgage) anything towards insurance policies missed mortgage payments (arrears) Support for mortgage interest can be also used to cover some other costs, but only under the conditions that: essential improvements or repairs are being done to the home – such as repairing necessary faults or adapting it to some exceptional conditions like for example a disabled member of a household after relationship separation, for buying off ex-partners' share Process If