About 3.85 million people who own their own homes think that a state benefit that doesn't exist will help them pay their mortgages if they lose their jobs.
New research shows that almost one in ten homeowners wrongly think that the government will pay their mortgage if they can't because they lost their job or got sick.
But the government won't help with mortgage payments for the first nine months of unemployment. After that, only a small group of people with mortgages of less than GBP100,000 can get help with unemployment.
Another 7% of the people Lincoln Financial Group talked to weren't sure if they could get help from the government. They also didn't seem to know that the last Conservative government got rid of state aid in 1995.
Ian Noble, who is in charge of strategic partnerships at Lincoln Financial Group, said that the numbers show that millions of Britons have a false sense of financial security because they think the government will help them out if they need it.
"Sadly, that is not the case. The government won't pay your mortgage if you lose your job, and thinking that it will puts people in real danger is a big risk because it means they don't have any other plan in place to protect their mortgage "said Mr. Noble.
This may be shown by the fact that mortgage repossessions are still going up dramatically. In the first three months of 2006, there was a 57% rise in repossession orders in England and Wales.
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