Search for
Search for
Search forMore than 1,000 lose their Plymouth homes
Friday, November 21, 2008, 07:00
Latest figures show that 537 country court orders were granted to mortgage lenders so they could repossess properties.
A further 565 were handed to landlords so they could remove tenants who had not paid their rent.
The figures are up by 44 per cent and 26 per cent respectively on the first nine months of 2007.
The figures don't necessarily mean those properties have been repossessed yet, as some will have been suspended.
But they do show the number of court orders being obtained is accelerating.
From January to March there were 151 mortgage repossessions, rising to 188 from April to June, and up by another 10 in the past quarter.
The statistics were released by the Ministry of Justice.
Meanwhile, Plymouth's Citizen's Advice Bureau is blaming unemployment for causing the debt which is fuelling the repossessions.
Advice service manager Karen Sharpe said that normally 10 to 11 per cent of clients were seeking help after being made jobless.
But that figure has risen to 14 per cent during the most recent quarter.
"We are getting a lot of job losses, small employers going under," she said. "Some days that is the majority of what we do."
The Plymouth repossession figures are the third highest in the area the Ministry of Justice defines as the South West.
Bristol had 863 repossession court orders granted in the first nine months of 2008, and Portsmouth 835.
In the entire region there were 7,581 repossession orders made, up 22 per cent on the first nine months of 2007.
The Ministry of Justice figures show that nationally 29,516 mortgage possession orders were made in courts in England and Wales by all lenders in the third quarter, 24 per cent higher than in the same period in 2007.
However, 47 per cent of orders were suspended and not all of them will lead to a home being repossessed.
Nationally, 11,300 homes were actually repossessed during the third quarter, 12 per cent higher than in the second quarter, figures from the Council of Mortgage Lenders showed. Despite the increase, the CML said it still expected about 45,000 repossessions this year.
However, the CML said the number of households in mortgage arrears by the end of the year was likely to exceed forecasts, as its figures showed 168,000 households were in arrears at the end of September 2009, eight per cent higher than the 155,600 at the end of June.
Catherine Brabner, Shelter regional campaigns officer for the South West said: "These are not just numbers, but tragic stories of people in Plymouth losing their homes and facing the real prospect of homelessness this Christmas. The Government must continue putting pressure on lenders and the courts to do everything possible to keep people in their homes."
Housing Minister Margaret Beckett said: "We will do everything we can to ensure repossession is always a last resort."
Insure Your Business from High Fuel Bill
Fuel cards insure your business from rising diesel and petrol costs.
Personal Injury Specialists. No Win No Fee, As Seen On TV.
Voted Britain’s Favourite DIY store Free delivery on orders over £45.
