The House of Commons Library defines mortgage prisoners as people who own property and have a mortgage on that property, butproperty but cannot move to a new mortgage provider or find a better deal, even if they are up to date with their payments. Some are trapped in extortionate variable interest rates of 8.29% to inactive vendors. An inactive vendor is a mortgage provider authorised to provide mortgages but does not offer new mortgage deals and cannot change mortgage terms as they are no longer lending. They are, therefore, simply a debt collector.