The Intermediary – June 2025 - Flipbook - Page 56
S E C O N D C H A RG E
Opinion
ebt is one of those
subjects we struggle
to speak about
clearly. It sits
uncomfortably
in people’s lives,
sometimes hidden in the details of a
bank statement, sometimes out in the
open in the form of mounting credit
card bills or a skipped repayment.
We know the pressure is there, and
that it rises at certain times of the
year. Summer, for many, is one of
those times.
There’s a sort of collective
assumption that summer brings relief.
The days are longer, the heating is off,
and a few of us manage to get away.
But for a lot of people, especially those
with children, summer means rising
costs. Childcare, family holidays,
school uniforms, meals out, meals in.
Add to this the backdrop of
a sluggish economy and rising
borrowing costs, and what should
feel like a season of ease becomes yet
another stress point. And not the kind
you can resolve by making sandwiches
instead of eating out. It’s structural,
cumulative, and very oen quietly
overwhelming.
These pressures rarely arrive in
isolation. They’re piled on top of
debts already carried over from
winter. Credit cards stretched too
far in December. A short-term
D
loan that became longer term than
planned. Increasingly, the stories we
hear are the same: people juggling
multiple repayments, each with a
different rate, a different term, and a
slightly later deadline than they can
keep up with.
These aren’t people who’ve been
reckless with money. They’re people
who’ve fallen behind, oen slowly,
sometimes all at once, and have found
there’s no easy way to catch up.
Taking control
This is the point where consolidation
becomes more than financial strategy.
It becomes a lifeline. While that might
sound dramatic, it’s no more so than
the situation many clients describe to
their brokers.
Second charge mortgages are
now among the most powerful tools
we have for helping people reduce
monthly outgoings and regain a sense
of control. They don’t make debt
disappear. They won’t erase the last
few years of inflation or frozen wages.
But they do offer something subtly
radical. The chance to make debt
manageable again.
At Norton Broker Services, we see
this every day. Most of the second
charge enquiries we support are for
exactly this purpose, with clients
looking to roll multiple debts into a
single, more affordable repayment.
The reasons vary. Some need
breathing space aer a change in
income. Others are planning ahead
before it gets worse. But the paern
is consistent. People aren’t looking to
borrow more. They’re looking for a
way to breathe.
Battling misconceptions
For brokers, there’s a crucial role to
play here. Second charges remain
poorly understood in the wider
market, not helped by the fact that
they sit somewhere between first
mortgages and unsecured loans, and
are oen overlooked by clients who
could benefit most from them.
Many don’t even know these loans
exist. Some assume they’re only for
the desperate. Others have simply
never had a lender, or a broker, suggest
that there might be another way.
But the demand is real and growing.
According to the Finance & Leasing
Association (FLA) stats released in
March 2025, second charge mortgage
lending was up 18% on the same
month the previous year. That’s not a
blip. It’s part of a much larger trend,
one that reflects rising debt levels and
a lack of other affordable options.
Meanwhile, about seven million
people in the UK are currently
behind on at least one household
bill, according to Money Advice
Trust. January 2025 alone saw £1.1bn
