Data from the Council of Mortgage Lenders has revealed there were an astonishing 18,900 cases, during the first half of 2008, where lenders had to repossess borrower’s properties, compared with 12,800 during the first six months of 2007.

The CML claims the data shows no surprises and maintains its forecast of 45,000 total possessions and 170,000 mortgages in arrears of more than three months by the end of the year, although it says these numbers remain extremely small when seen in the context of the 11.74 million mortgages in the UK.

The above figures relate to first mortgages, not to other consumer loans secured on people’s homes. Michael Coogan, director-general of the CML, says: “The number of people facing difficulty needs to be kept in perspective. The good news is that most people are coping well and continuing to pay their mortgages in full.”

The Liberal Democrats have called on the government to intervene to stop mortgage lenders acting too quickly to repossess homes. As the British Chamber of Commerce warn that the UK could soon be in recession, the latest figures from the Ministry of Justice disclosed that the number of court orders granted to mortgage lenders rose by more than 12 per cent between the first and second quarter of 2008. Liberal Democrat shadow chancellor, Vince Cable, believes that these figures show that the “government must intervene to stop lenders moving quickly through the courts” in an effort to repossess homes. He said: “Since the mid 1990s, claimants have been unable to get help with mortgage payments until they have been unable to work for nine months. “This means many of those out of work will face the threat of repossession.” Earlier this month, the Council of Mortgage Lenders revealed that the number of repossessions in the first half of this year was 18,900, which is a 48 per cent increase on the same period in 2007.

The number of people in Norwich losing their homes because they cannot meet mortgage or rent payments is soaring.
Staggering new figures have shown that the number of mortgage repossessions made at Norwich Crown Court has more than doubled in just 12 months, with the rise the second highest in the country.
Meanwhile, orders made against people who cannot pay their rent have also risen heavily.
The figures provide further evidence of the increased pressure families are feeling in the face of the credit crunch.
Between April and June this year the Norwich court ruled that 203 mortgage holders should have their homes repossessed, a process which starts if people cannot keep up their payments and lender or landlord takes them to court seeking to turf them out of their houses.
This was a rise of 131pc compared to the previous year.
For the year so far, orders have been served on 356 people, a 65pc increase on the same period in 2007.
There have also been 529 landlord repossession orders so far this year, up 38pc on the previous year.
Jude Wood, East of England regional manager for housing and homelessness charity Shelter, today described the rise as “staggering”.
She said: “At Shelter, every week we see more people in need of help with mortgage arrears. One year on from the credit crunch, the number of people being repossessed is rapidly rising and every day we are moving a step closer to the dark days of the last repossession explosion.
“The Government urgently needs to play its part to prevent thousands more families from losing their homes and provide the financial support troubled homeowners need to keep a roof over their head.
“Urgent action needs to be taken to prevent more people in Norwich facing the nightmare of having their home taken away from them.”
Andy Cobb, manager of Norwich and District Citizen’s Advice Bureau’s Debtline, said it had seen a big increase in people in financial difficulties and an increase in the number of people they are seeing who are facing repossession action.
He added: “But I can only guess at why there seems to have been a particular increase in Norwich. It might be because, historically, we have a fairly low wage economy, so people might have overstretched themselves when taking out mortgages, maybe a lot of people thought it was a good place to go for buy-to-let properties, or maybe we just had very few possession orders previously, so the increase looks more marked.
“The important message to get across is that people should not give up hope when action is first taken against them.
“Often when people ring us for the first time they are immediately prepared to hand their keys over to the lender or landlord and don’t realise the final decision can only be taken by the court.
“Mortgage lenders go to the courts as a last resort and there are other options, such as finding ways to make payments, which we can help them work through first.”
Already the ongoing credit crunch has had a big impact on people living in the city, with house prices crashing and at the same time the cost of living soaring.
Several firms have also made redundancies in light of, or to stave off, a cash crisis.
John Drake, chief executive of YMCA Norfolk, said, because his charity helps people aged 16 to 24, the majority of people he sees were not likely to have lost homes.
But he added: “We don’t get the wife and husband who have lost their homes, but we might see their 19-year-old son, who has nowhere to go because they have downsized their home.
“These young people might be told they have to leave home and get a job, but the jobs are not there, so they drift from the rural areas into Norwich.
“This recession is a subtle poison. It seeps into society. There is a link between economic hardship, leading to family breakdown and then social displacement.”
One example of the anguish of facing repossession is Mr B, who wants to remain anonymous. He owned his home for four years and lived there with his daughter, aged 13, but in 2006, he became very ill, suffering a breakdown, and became unable to work.
He contacted his mortgage lender and explained his situation to them, asking for some leniency for a six-month period while he got back on his feet and back to work.
He felt fairly confident he would be protected because he had taken out Mortgage Payment Protection Insurance (MPPI) through his lender.
Despite writing a letter to his lender and insurance company explaining his situation, Mr B received no help from them or opportunity to negotiate.
He became very depressed and disillusioned, not knowing where else he could turn to for help. In December 2006 he received his first summons from the mortgage lender for possession of the property.
He said: “I felt like no one was listening to me when I was in trouble there was absolutely no one to help me. It was very frightening and I felt like I was going to die.
“These may seem to be strong words, but believe you me, when someone lives through a year of trauma, anxiety, stress, depression, despair and the sheer nightmare, day in day out, of the devastating prospect of losing one’s only home, it makes you feel like you would rather be dead.”
In January 2007, Mr B got in touch with Shelter and they were able to help him get an adjournment on the possession order. However, because the situation was so stressful and had already escalated to such a scale, he could no longer continue to fight to keep his home and it was repossessed in August 2007.
The tally of people losing their homes in Norfolk could have been even worse, had Norwich not been selected for a pioneering project which aims to stop council tenants from being forced out onto the streets.
A scheme, run by the Norwich County Court, Norwich City Council and Norfolk Community Law Service (NCLS), was piloted in Norwich to head off court appearances.
Before being summoned to a court hearing, people with council rent arrears are invited by the court to attend a meeting with an advisor from the law service.
The scheme has been successful, with 70 per cent of the people invited for meetings attending and the majority managing to renegotiate their repayment, and the Government is considering rolling it out nationwide.

HOME repossession orders in Scarborough are up by almost a third compared with the same time last year. New figures from the Ministry of Justice reveal that 170 county court orders were made in Scarborough in the first half of 2008 – a rise of 32 per cent in a year.

Between January and March this year the number of repossession orders rose by a staggering 165 per cent – the third highest figure in England and Wales for the first quarter of 2008.

However, figures have slowed in recent months, with 16 per cent fewer orders made from April to June compared with the second quarter of 2007. The slowdown is good news for homeowners after the rocketing figures for Scarborough at the start of this year.

Tania Exley-Moore, Scarborough’s Prospective Parliamentary Candidate for the Liberal Democrats, says the situation is in crisis. She said: “This was going to be inevitable with the credit crunch. People have been overstretching themselves and have been encouraged to take out mortgages they can’t pay back. Lots of people, especially young families, are struggling to make ends meet. “I can see these problems getting worse in Scarborough and Whitby.

Let’s hope the council can do more to put pressure on local builders for more affordable housing.

Stafford has emerged as one of the fastest-growing areas in the country for home repossessions, according to the latest statistics.

The affluent town might have been expected by most people to weather the credit crunch better than its less well-off neighbours.

But new statistics show that over the past few months, repossessions have exploded by more than 70 per cent, prompting fears of an increase in homelessness in the area.

With hundreds of families potentially losing their homes, the development also means local housing waiting lists could be made much longer. Council chiefs say they are helpless to address the problem as private borrowing is outside of their control.