Using credit cards to pay mortgage 'has advantages'

Using a credit card to make repayments on a mortgage is not necessarily a bad thing - depending on the circumstances.

That is the opinion of the Debt Advice Bureau, which claimed that credit card debts can sometimes work out cheaper than mortgages.

The comments come after a survey by YouGov revealed the extent to which people in the UK are turning to credit when paying off their debts.

According to the survey, more than a million Britons have used plastic in order to keep up with their repayments in the last year.

Shelter, which commissioned the survey, described the findings as "shocking".

However, director of the Debt Advice Bureau Stephen Rose believes that, in many cases, homeowners may be able to benefit from making such transactions.

"If somebody's paying considerably less on their credit card than they are on their mortgage then it's a good thing, but if they're paying more on their credit card than they are on their mortgage then it's a bad thing," he suggested.

Mr Rose cited examples of people who had "technically bought a house on a credit card", who have "done very well" in the process.