Mortgages: how to cope as UK interest rates hit the roof

Some homeowners mortgages will treble when they strike a new deal within the next few months. Photograph: f:nalinframe/Alamy

For Britons buying their first home or chasing a new deal the maelstrom in the mortgage market is the stuff of nightmares, with products being pulled right, left and centre, and no end in sight as the Bank of England raises interest rates yet again.

As the consumer champion Martin Lewis put it this week: the mortgage “ticking timebomb” has “exploded”, with homeowners, already hobbled by the cost of living crisis, now racing to replace low-cost deals that are expiring.