It sounds like a dream ticket for homeowners: the chance to take a two-year holiday from interest repayments on a mortgage. But as always with government initiatives rushed out in haste the devil is in the detail. In the case of the new homeowner mortgage support scheme, what we know about the detail is extremely scant, raising suspicions that it may not be the “get out of jail free” card that struggling homeowners will hope.

What we do know is that it will cover mortgages worth up to £400,000, meaning most homeowners in the country. You will, however, qualify only if you have suffered a “significant loss of income”, because you’ve lost your job or had your hours docked, and are facing repossession.

Nobody, as yet, seems to know how significant the loss of income will have to be and whether it will be up to the lender or the state to decide who can apply.

All the interest that goes unpaid for two years will be rolled up and added to the remaining mortgage. Borrowers with a £200,000 interest-only mortgage with 20 years to run could be spared temporarily from paying £818 a month, assuming their mortgage rate is 5 per cent.

Once the two years are up, that £10,000 will be added to their remaining debt, meaning that they owe £210,000. Some lenders may allow borrowers to extend their mortgage term. If they do not the borrower will suddenly face a demand to pay back £875 a month on a bigger mortgage, if interest rates are unchanged. Far from being farther along the road to debt-free heaven they will have plunged even more into the red.