I own my home but have fallen behind with my mortgage payments. I’ve heard about companies that can clear your debts, buy your home and then rent it back to you but I want to know more. Can you help?

This information applies to England and Wales

The schemes that you talk about are generally known as sale and rent back schemes, but they may also be called buy back or sale and lease back schemes.

These are schemes where private firms offer to buy your property, usually at a discounted price, and rent it back to you. A private firm can mean a company, a broker or a private individual.

This may look like a good way out of your mortgage problems because it allows you to pay off your debt while being able to stay in your home.

However, you need to be very careful about signing up to a sale and rent back scheme run by a private firm because they can be risky.

If you're thinking about signing up to sale and rent back scheme you should think about getting independent financial advice. This will help make sure you've thought carefully about how a sale and rent back scheme will affect your money and housing situation in the longer term.

Things to look out for if you're thinking about signing up to a sale and rent back scheme run by a private firm include:

• check the price you're being offered - sale and rent back firms usually buy homes below the market rate so you could end up losing money. You might be better off selling your home on the open market and finding somewhere else to rent
• you could still get evicted - you might still get evicted if you go against any of the terms of your tenancy agreement such as falling behind with the rent payments. When you sign up to a private sale and rent back scheme, it's likely that your home will be rented back to you on the basis of a fixed-term tenancy. When the fixed-term comes to an end, it's usually very easy for your landlord to evict you, even if you've done nothing wrong
• your entitlement to benefits may be affected - if you sell your home but continue to live there and pay rent, you may not be entitled to Housing Benefit. Your entitlement to other means-tested benefits may also be affected.

For more information about Housing Benefit, see Help with your rent – Housing Benefit.

You might want to see whether you can get onto one of the mortgage rescue schemes run by social landlords or a government-backed mortgage rescue scheme instead.

For more information about mortgage rescue schemes, including government-backed schemes, and how to deal with mortgage arrears, see Mortgage rescue schemes.

If you're thinking about signing up to a sale and rent back scheme, you should get advice from an experienced adviser, for example, at a Citizens Advice Bureau. To search for details of your nearest CAB, including those that can give advice by email, click on nearest CAB.

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