Repossessions expected to rise
According to the Council of Mortgage Lenders, there were 27,100 repossessions in the UK in 2007. This year the figure is predicted to rise steeply to 45,000 repossessions this year. That will be the highest number of repossessions since 1995, when the market was recovering from the slump of the early Nineties.
Mortgage lenders predict that house repossessions will rise by 75% this year. It is feared that the numbers of families who will lose their homes will soar from 17,000 last year to 30,000.In the fourth quarter of last year, the number of repossessions averaged about 23,000. This was an increase by 7% on the fourth quarter of 2006 and 27% higher than the fourth quarter of 2005. The repossession numbers are a good indication of how homeowners are coping with the credit crunch.
The good news for homeowners is that fewer homes are repossessed than the number of orders made because not all orders are enforced.