A halal, sharia compliant Home Purchase Plan

A Home Purchase Plan (HPP) is StrideUp’s sharia compliant alternative to a mortgage. You and StrideUp buy the home together in partnership. Each month, you make one fixed payment that covers rent for our share and gradually increases your ownership. This will lead to owning the property outright by the end of your full term.

In practice, yes – as Islamic mortgage is what people call a Home Purchase Plan (HPP). Since a mortgage is a debt-based contract, which doesn’t exist in Islam, the Islamic way of buying a house through joint ownership is known as a HPP. Because “mortgage” is the widely recognised term, an HPP is often referred to as an Islamic mortgage, but in reality there’s no mortgage contract in place and no lending with interest. The structures are different; the intention and outcome are the same: to buy a house.

Mortgages are credit agreements built on interest. StrideUp’s halal Home Purchase Plan (HPP) is equity-based, meaning your money is tied to real property ownership, not just a loan balance.

There are several alternatives to traditional mortgages available in the UK, and StrideUp’s HPP is one of them, built around Islamic finance principles rather than interest.

It’s still the most commonly used term to define a halal Home Purchase Plan (HPP). This is where you buy a property jointly with a provider, such as StrideUp, and pay rent on StrideUp’s share whilst also paying towards purchasing StrideUp’s share over time.

Since there’s no lending and interest involved, and the contracts are structured under Islamic finance principles, the overall outcome is the same, you buy your home, but you do it without paying interest.

With StrideUp, you start with a minimum 10% deposit. This becomes your equity in the home and forms the foundation for your ownership journey.

Yes, StrideUp’s Home Purchase Plan (HPP) is fully certified by qualified scholars from Amanah Advisors. It is built to ensure your home finance never compromises your values, and it is not a home loan, rather a partnership that’s based on joint ownership.

Even if the rate is fixed, a conventional mortgage is still based on interest. From an Islamic perspective, fixing the rate does not change the underlying issue, it’s the presence of riba. This is why fixed-rate mortgages are generally not considered halal, and why Muslims often seek non-interest-based alternatives instead, even if the rate is fixed for a said period.

Mortgages are considered haram because they are built on riba (interest), i.e. charging or paying interest on borrowed money. Islam discourages profit from debt and promotes financial arrangements where risk and reward are shared fairly. Interest-based mortgages are often viewed as placing disproportionate risk on the borrower while guaranteeing profit for the lender, which conflicts with Islamic principles of justice and balance.

In Islamic finance, using a benchmark such as the Bank of England Base Rate is permitted, provided it serves purely as a pricing reference point and does not change the agreement’s underlying sharia structure. Sharia does not prohibit benchmarking itself. What is prohibited is riba (interest). A benchmark is simply a commonly recognised, transparent market indicator used to help determine fair and consistent pricing within the local market.

Using an established benchmark helps avoid uncertainty (gharar), ensures clarity for customers, and aligns pricing with prevailing economic conditions. It does not introduce interest into the contract, nor does it alter the sharia compliant structure of the arrangement.

The permissibility rests on the substance of the contract remaining free from riba, regardless of the benchmark used for pricing reference.

To buy a house without interest in Islam, many Muslims turn to partnership-based home finance models. These structures avoid lending money altogether. Instead, the provider and the customer buy the property together, with ownership shared from day one.
Over time, the customer can increase their share by making acquisition payments on a monthly basis, and pay rent on the portion of the property they do not yet own. This approach allows people to work towards homeownership in a way that aligns with their faith and values.

No. In a mortgage contract, interest is charged on the money that you borrow. In StrideUp’s HPP product, our rental rate is the cost of using the share of the property you do not yet own. It is a transparent rent for real use of the property, not a charge on money lent.

Yes. Up to four applicants can apply together, combining incomes to help you access the right home for your needs.

Most people receive their Decision in Principle the same working day. Full applications typically move to offer in just over two weeks, although timescales depend on your circumstances and third-party checks.

Buying a house with interest in Islam is prohibited, as interest (riba) is explicitly forbidden in Islamic teachings. This applies regardless of the purpose of the finance, including homeownership. Many people ask, “is interest haram when buying a house” or “is buying a house with interest haram”, and the truth is, the majority view among scholars is that riba is not permitted, even when buying a family home. That’s why many Muslims look for alternatives that allow them to own a home without compromising their beliefs.

Borrowing money in Islam is allowed, and Muslim borrowing money is not forbidden in itself. What matters is how the money is borrowed. Islam prohibits borrowing arrangements that involve riba (interest) or unjust exploitation.

Interest-free loans (qard-ul-hasan), profit-sharing arrangements, or partnership-based structures are all permissible ways of financing, as they are built on fairness, transparency and shared responsibility.