House Repossession Assistance

Mortgage Repossessions in 2009 reached a total of 46,000, which was 2000 lower than the Council of Mortgage Lenders most recent forecast of 48,000, and much lower than they previously forecast at the start of 2009 with the figure then expected to be 75,000.

Having said that, the figure was still 15% higher than the total house repossession cases recorded in 2008 of 40,000. Recent figures forecast for 2010 by the CML indicated that they expected 2010 to show 205,000 mortgage arrears cases and 53,000 home repossessions, but this is also expected to be more than the year will actually bring as the UK unemployment situation is proving to be better than expected with more people either holding on to their jobs or managing to find new ones.

Michael Coogan, director general of the CML, commented saying: “The fact that mortgage arrears and possessions did not rise as much as we feared in 2009 is testament to the effect of low interest rate and a great deal of concerted effort by lenders, government and the advice sector to help borrowers to address financial difficulties when they occur.”

He went on to say that “2010 will still be a challenging year for many borrowers and some households will inevitably find their finances being squeezed if interest rates do rise”.

Mark Leaper at Moneymatchmaker.com said “The figures are very encouraging, the number of higher LTV mortgage products is increasing, helping to kick start the first time buyer mortgage market, which has to be good news for the rest of the UK housing market, as property sales are on the increase.

Leaper went on to say: “Low interest rates have been a significant factor in helping to keep the number of home repossessions down, but he believed that some lenders could do more still to ease the burden on the UK homeowner, by reviewing their standard variable rates in a downward direction. Whilst I accept that they need to remain appealing to investors, there is no real reason why they cannot operate a mortgage lending standard variable rate and an investor’s standard variable rate, which definitely would get the thumbs up from under pressure UK homeowners”.

The Council of Mortgage Lenders recently revealed that buy-to-let mortgage lending had dropped significantly with figures being reported at an 8 year low in 2009.

The total amount of buy to let mortgages issued in 2009 equated to only 5.9% of all mortgage lending, and this is taking into account new buy to let lending increasing for the second consecutive quarter in Q4 2009. 2009 saw gross buy to let mortgage lending at £8.5bn, which is dramatically lower than £27.2bn in 2008.