Santander mortgage and virus difficulties: do they let you switch to interest only?

SouthLondonUser

Santander's page https://www.santander.co.uk/personal/coronavirus?icid=php-Hero-Coronavirus-0320 states that you can apply for a 3-month payment holiday on your mortgage if you are affected by the virus. It seems the process is fairly automated (I guess it wouldn't require interaction with the call centre).
However, my question is: does Santander let you switch to an interest-only mortgage for a limited period, like Barclays and HSBC?
I have not found this mentioned on their website; has anyone managed to contact Santander about it?
I would presume Santander would probably review it on a case-by-case basis.
I am asking here instead of calling because the lines are, understandably, super busy and I'd rather leave the line to people who need it more than me.
Thanks!

PS Some comments mean well, some have a holier-than-thou attitude, so, to be clear:

• the question is not whether you think I need it, so please don't ask me that - that is not the question
• yes, I fully understand the implications of an interest-only mortgage or of a payment holiday, thank you, but no need to remind me
• I'd appreciate it if answers could be kept factual and on-topic so that this thread can be most useful to other people, too

Jeremy535897

I suspect they will have one standard automated process for a mortgage holiday and getting anything else will be very difficult.

selina2000

SouthLondonUser said:

Santander's page states that you can apply for a 3-month payment holiday on your mortgage if you are affected by the virus. It seems the process is fairly automated (I guess it wouldn't require interaction with the call centre).
However, my question is: does Santander let you switch to an interest-only mortgage for a limited period, like Barclays and HSBC?
I have not found this mentioned on their website; has anyone managed to contact Santander about it?
I would presume Santander would probably review it on a case-by-case basis.
I am asking here instead of calling because the lines are, understandably, super busy and I'd rather leave the line to people who need it more than me.
Thanks!

PS Some comments mean well, some have a holier-than-thou attitude, so, to be clear:

• the question is not whether you think I need it, so please don't ask me that - that is not the question
• yes, I fully understand the implications of an interest-only mortgage or of a payment holiday, thank you, but no need to remind me
• I'd appreciate it if answers could be kept factual and on-topic so that this thread can be most useful to other people, too

There is nothing to prevent anyone who has been granted a payment holiday still making payments in part or full during that holiday.

#BestOfBothWorlds

SouthLondonUser

Sure. The difference is that payment holidays are being granted for 3 months, while other banks like HSBC and Barclays are, if the press is to be believed, letting customers switch to interest-only for 12 months.

HornetSaver

What Jeremy said. The odds of getting through to a person right now are not in your favour, and that's not a criticism of banks. They could NEVER have foreseen a spike in demand like this.

I would imagine that if they were offering a temporary switch to interest only, that they would realise that this would play well with consumers and therefore the information would not be too hard to find. So I can only assume they are not. They do mention interest-only as one of the repayment methods on their main mortgage page, but in the absence of any qualifiers I would imagine that the things for which which you can access interest-only are the same as prior to Covid-19, on the same line of reasoning as the previous sentence, and therefore this would not include a personal mortgage on your own home.

mwarby

It’s likely that after the 3 month payment holiday, if your still struggling your bank will be open to looking at other measures to help you. 

With the amount of people struggling and the likely downturn in the housing market they are imho unlikely to want to come down hard  and seek to repossess after the payment holiday where that can be avoided by say a temporary switch to interest only or by extending the term

SouthLondonUser

That all makes sense. I presume no one has approached Santander with a similar question, right? Or, if they have, could they please share their experience?