Help to Buy Staircasing: Is Partial Repayment Worth It?

Here's how staircasing works with real numbers:

By paying £31,000, you've halved your equity loan percentage from 20% to 10%. Your ongoing interest is now calculated on a 10% equity loan instead of 20%, roughly halving your monthly payments.

But you've also paid the process fees (~£1,000-1,800) and need to find £31,000 in cash or through remortgaging. This is where the cost-benefit analysis gets interesting.

Staircasing is worth considering when:

• You can't afford full redemption — You don't have enough equity or income to remortgage for the full equity loan amount, but you can cover 10% of the property value.
• You're in the early years of paying interest — The sooner you reduce the equity loan, the more you save in cumulative interest over the remaining years.
• You have savings or can partly remortgage — If you have cash sitting in a low-interest savings account, it may do better work reducing your HTB interest.
• You have a 40% London loan — The interest saving is larger on bigger equity loan percentages.

“I have enough in cash to staircase 10%... however with the interest rates as they are I'm not sure that makes the most...”

This is exactly the kind of question our calculator answers. It compares the cost of staircasing (including process fees and what you'd pay on a larger mortgage or lose in savings interest) against the cost of doing nothing.

Staircasing may not be the right move when:

• You could afford full redemption instead — If you can remortgage to pay off the entire equity loan, that's almost always better. One transaction, one set of fees, no remaining HTB interest. See our remortgaging guide →
• You're planning to sell soon — The process fees and hassle aren't worth it if you'll sell within a year or two. The equity loan gets repaid from sale proceeds anyway.
• Your property value has dropped significantly — In this case, the staircasing amount is lower (because it's based on current value), but you may be better off waiting for values to recover.
• Multiple staircase transactions are costly — Each one incurs ~£1,000-1,800 in fees. If you staircase twice instead of redeeming once, you're paying those fees twice.

The process is similar to full redemption, with the same steps and players:

1. Get a RICS valuation — Same requirement as full redemption. Cost: ~£300-600. Valid for 3 months.
2. Submit to Lenvi — Request a staircasing instead of a redemption. They calculate the amount based on your equity loan percentage and the valuation.
3. Arrange funding — Cash savings, remortgage, or a combination. If remortgaging, you need a source of funds certificate.
4. Solicitor handles the legal work — The equity loan charge on your property is updated to reflect the new, lower percentage.
5. Completion — Funds are transferred, your equity loan percentage is reduced, and your ongoing interest drops accordingly.

Timeline: Similar to full redemption — 3-5 months. Lenvi's processing time is usually the bottleneck.

The key question is always: does the interest saving from staircasing justify the upfront cost? This depends on your specific numbers — loan amount, property value, how many years of interest remain, and what the money would earn elsewhere.

Our calculator shows a side-by-side comparison: keep paying vs staircase vs full redemption, including process costs and projected interest savings over 5 and 10 years.

Compare your options with real numbers in the calculator →