Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what the average length of time is for a Support for Mortgage Interest payment to be transferred to a loan.

Before being offered an SMI loan, claimants are given information about how the SMI loan will work, about alternatives to the loan and organisations that may offer further information and support. This is followed up by telephone calls to explain the information and answer any questions. A leaflet containing Frequently Asked Questions is issued to support this informed discussion. Where a claimant expresses an interest in taking up the offer of an SMI loan they will be sent a loan agreement and charge form to complete and return. They also receive detailed guidance on how to complete these documents

The Department determines that a minimum of 6 weeks is given for claimants to make a decision whether to take up the offer of an SMI loan. The Department ask that the loan agreement and charge form are returned soon as reasonably possible to enable them to be processed efficiently. A reminder is sent out after six weeks if the documents have not been received. Claimants may change their mind whether to take or decline a loan at any time.

Returned forms are checked for accuracy, and if correctly completed we would expect that, in the majority of cases, SMI Loan payments would be authorised within two weeks.