Desperate would-be homeowners are being offered a radical new option to get on to the property ladder – the chance to get their future grandchildren to pay off their mortgage.

The interest-only "deathbed mortgage" issued by Kent Reliance has an effectively infinite term, so that responsibility for keeping up payments can be passed down the generations.

While the scheme promises to knock around £150 to £170 off the cost of average monthly payments, critics say that the mortgage will become a multiple life sentence.

"We wrote to all our customers who have interest-only mortgages to remind them they have to decide what they want to do," Mike Lazenby of Kent Reliance told the Guardian.

"The inter-generational mortgage is one of the options. They can keep it on interest only and when they die they pass on the property and the mortgage to their kids."

Interest-only schemes allow homeowners to simply cover the cost of interest on a loan while leaving the capital costs untouched.

Advisors have pointed out that the scheme could allow homeowners to avoid inheritance tax, with a child left a £400,000 home plus £150,000 mortgage avoiding the threshold.

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