Why We Built This
Help to Buy Calculator was created to solve a problem we experienced first-hand. When the five-year interest-free period on a Help to Buy equity loan approaches, the questions start piling up: how much will the payments be? How quickly will they rise? Is it worth remortgaging to clear the loan before the interest escalates?
Answering those questions properly meant working through a compounding interest formula year by year, factoring in inflation assumptions, and comparing the 2013–2021 (RPI+1%) and 2021–2023 (CPI+2%) schemes. No simple, clear tool existed to do this. So we built one — free to use, with no registration required and no data stored.
What started as a calculator grew into a broader resource. The UK home buying process is complex, jargon-heavy, and often opaque, especially for first-time buyers and those navigating government schemes. Our guides aim to cut through that complexity with plain-English explanations grounded in the facts.
Who We Are
Help to Buy Calculator is an independent, self-funded website run by UK homeowners who have direct personal experience of the Help to Buy equity loan scheme. We are not a lender, a mortgage broker, a financial adviser, or a government body. We have no institutional backing and no product to sell you.
Our team combines practical first-hand experience of the Help to Buy process with careful research from official sources. We are not regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority, and nothing on this site constitutes financial advice. Where decisions involve significant sums of money — such as remortgaging to repay an equity loan — we always recommend consulting a qualified, FCA-authorised adviser.
What We Cover
The calculator and guides on this site fall into four main areas:
- Help to Buy equity loans — how the scheme worked, how interest is calculated, what happens when you sell, the repayment process, and how to plan for rising costs from year six onwards.
- Mortgages — deposits, affordability assessments, fixed versus variable rates, remortgaging, and getting a mortgage with less-than-perfect credit.
- The buying process — every stage from saving a deposit to picking up the keys, including conveyancing, surveys, offers, and exchange of contracts.
- Home ownership — energy performance, home insurance, maintenance checklists, council tax, and looking after a property once you own it.
Our primary audience is the roughly 350,000 households in England who took out a Help to Buy equity loan and are now managing — or approaching — the interest-charging period. We also aim to be useful for anyone buying a home in the UK for the first time.
Our Editorial Standards
Every article on this site is written by our editorial team from scratch. We do not publish AI-generated content without thorough human review, we do not scrape or copy content from other websites, and we do not accept payment for editorial coverage.
Our primary reference sources are:
- GOV.UK — Help to Buy equity loan and related guidance
- The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) consumer guidance
- The Bank of England for inflation and interest rate data
- HMRC guidance on stamp duty and property taxes
- The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) for survey and valuation standards
We aim to update articles whenever the underlying rules, rates, or government schemes change. Where a figure — such as a stamp duty threshold — is time-sensitive, we note when the information was last reviewed. If you spot an error or an out-of-date figure, please let us know.
Transparency and How We Are Funded
The calculator and all editorial content on this site are free to use. To cover the costs of running the site, we use two revenue streams:
Affiliate links — some articles contain clearly labelled sponsored links to third-party services such as mortgage brokers, conveyancers, surveyors, and home insurers. If you click through and go on to use a service, we may earn a commission. This never affects the price you pay, and it does not influence our editorial decisions. We do not rank, recommend, or endorse specific products, and we never accept payment for editorial coverage. All affiliate links are marked with an “Ad” label in line with ASA guidelines.
Display advertising — we display advertising through Google AdSense and similar networks. Ads are served based on your browsing context. You can opt out of personalised advertising via Google Ads Settings. See our Privacy Policy for full details of how advertising cookies work on this site.
Neither revenue stream shapes what we write or how we write it. Our editorial independence is not for sale.
Disclaimer
The calculator provides estimates based on the inputs you enter and the interest calculation formulae published by Homes England. Actual repayment amounts may vary depending on your specific loan terms, the inflation figures applied by Target Group (the loan administrator), and any changes to government policy. This site is not affiliated with the UK Government, Homes England, or Target Group.
Nothing on this website constitutes financial, mortgage, legal, or tax advice. Always seek advice from a qualified, FCA-regulated professional before making decisions about your equity loan or mortgage.
Get in Touch
We genuinely want to hear from you. If you have a question about your Help to Buy loan that we have not answered, if you have found an error in one of our articles, or if there is a topic you think we should cover, please use our contact form. We read every message and aim to respond within a few working days.