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The National Landlords Association has called on the Government to add buy-to-let mortgages to the list of loans that could benefit from the new redundancy mortgage interest aid.

The Prime Minister revealed that any borrowers out of work could be covered for mortgage aid for residential deals up to £400,000. Although no more details have been revealed, the NLA says there has to be buy-to-let aid too.

Simon Gordon, head of communications of the NLA says: "Given that 71% of landlords expect rental arrears to be a major issue during 2009, the Government should extend the recently announced measures, aimed at helping struggling homeowners, to cover properties secured on buy-to-let mortgage finance.”

Gordon says if the Government wants to keep people in homes, simply then landlords can’t be ignored. Any landlord falling into arrears as a result of tenants missing payments may lose their property, and their tenants home in turn. And because more people will be unable to find a mortgage in 2009, there could be more people than ever at risk of eviction.

He adds: "By giving buy-to-let landlords the same breathing space, it would give them a chance to offer any struggling tenants a similar period of time to get their finances in order and prevent the home being repossessed and lenders evicting tenants."

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