A mortgage servicing company is forecasting that the number of UK houses repossessed this year will represent only 0.09 per cent of mortgaged homes - providing the interest rate remains unchanged.
HML says it predicts only 10,326 repossessions will occur across the UK this year. If true, it will be the second successive year of very low repossessions - last year there were just 10,200 according to the Council for Mortgage Lenders. risk.
“Another year of low repossession rates is welcome – but we shouldn’t ignore the prospect of big increases when interest rates eventually rise. Those hit hardest by other financial pressures such as unemployment are at particular risk, and if the UK steel industry deteriorates, we can sadly expect repossessions to increase in communities that are affected” says Andrew Jones, HML’s chief executive officer.
The company says Northern Ireland to have the highest repossession rate at 0.27 per cent, with south west England and the East Midlands having the lowest at 0.06 per cent.
In September 2015, HML said that an interest rate rise would likely hit first-time buyers particularly hard, predicting 20,000 could fall into arrears if the base rate rose by 1.5 per cent.
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