There were 20,034 mortgage possession claims issued in the first quarter (January to March) of 2011, 8% higher than in the first quarter of 2010 and 3% higher than in the fourth quarter of 2010, according to new Ministry of Justice figures.
There were 14,568 mortgage possession claims which led to an order being made in the first quarter, 2% higher than in the first quarter of 2010 but the same as in the fourth quarter of 2011.
Nearly half (48%) of first orders made in mortgage possession claims were suspended in the first quarter of 2011, compared to 46% in the first quarter of 2010 and 48% in the fourth quarter of 2010.
The number of actual repossessions occurring (as reported by the Council of Mortgage Lenders), expressed as a proportion of mortgage possession claims which led to an order being made in the county courts, was 64% in 2010. This compares with 66% in 2009 after an upward trend from 18% in 2004.
Across England and Wales, the regions with the highest numbers of mortgage claims and claims leading to orders per 1,000 households (including mortgaged and rented) in the first quarter of 2011 were the North-East and the North-West.
The local authority areas with the highest number of mortgage claims per 1,000 households were Corby, North-East Lincolnshire, and Barking and Dagenham.
Comments
Agree with you all here.
As posted in Tuesday's LAT last article on the HML prediction for possessions this year 40,000 would be good and 33,000 miraculous.
It isn't this year that matters though as unless proceedings have already been started to the extent of at least a Court hearing date being set, then the actual eviction if it comes to that in any current severe arrears cases won't come through until early 2012.
The figures to really look at therefore will be the second quarter of next year as they will have been generated starting last quarter of this year and after the cuts have really started biting and above all, I fear, interest rates possibly starting to rise.
The real figure of interest is the combination of evictions but with borrower voluntary surrenders added to them.
I say this because when I was at NBS the number of keys dropped into the branch as the borrowers gave up the struggle probably outweighed actual physical possessions even with just a Court Order granted, never mind enforced by a Bailiff, by about 10 to 1
Ray, to all of it. He got the situation spot on. All the phoney reasons the bank trots out about why we have low interest rates and high inflation are all bull. It’s a deliberate strategy. The BoE, and indeed the treasury are trying to prop up prices. They are not doing this because they have a soft spot in their heart for the feckless who have bitten of more debt than they can chew. The reason is UK banks are substantially exposed to UK house prices and big falls now would wipe out there reserves.
Not wanting to go into the technical’s, but the way a bank’s capital structure works means they can wipe out their entire reserves very quickly if there loan book has to be written down.
Over the last couple of years the situation has been engineered in which banks can earn huge profits by manipulating the cost of money (which they buy) against the cost of loaning it out. This then cycles into government debt as capital reserves.
When their reserves are built to the point that a fall in the value of their loan book of 40% (or whatever they are modelling on) without wiping out all the reserves then they can withdraw the artificial methods to keep money cheap. This will then halt the excessive currency devaluation and the inflation, but will result in a tsunami (as the Lloyds bloke called it) of repossessions.
The fact that the banks are allowing a small number of repossessions to occur now indicates they are close to no longer needing this artificial support, which after all, could wipe out their long term loan book, which would be even worse for them if inflation continues.
What AC was saying in his comment is that after they are capitalised, they won’t care about people’s sob stories, they will jut resell.
@FTB Dan
To what part are you saying Amen?
Amen to that Mr Coward. Right on the money.
That means that the banks can now "afford" to have these assets listed on their books.
Beware an interest rate rise, the first time someone misses a payment after that and they will be out on their ear, no matter how well they have been paying in the middle.
There is a huge stored up repossession problem just waiting to happen and as soon as the banks are properly capitalised, they will start acting on it.