Copy article

Repossessions up 1,611% from April-June 2022

Journalist: Frances Ivens, Telegraph

ended 11. August 2022

This is Money/ MailOnline journalist writing a piece on the rise in house repossessions in Q2 this year - up 1,611% on Q2 2021. 

While this is  huge increase due to the end of the ban on bailiff enforcement in place until May 2021 there are warnings that this is the tip of the iceberg as the cost of living crisis hits. 

Do you think this is analysis is correct? Do you expect to see possession rates, for both homeowners and tenants increasing?

3 responses from the Newspage community

Copy all

Star Quote
Copy

Jamie Lennox
Director at Dimora Mortgages
We're in for a very bleak winter and start to 2023 based on these findings. We're going to see a huge amount of customers coming off ultra-low rates who could see new deals being treble of what they have become accustomed to. With the news of the energy cap increasing further, there is going to be a large percentage of people who will not be able to absorb these everyday living costs. We've come off a period of time where house prices have rocketed, with many people stretching themselves to their limits just to keep up with house price growth who won't have accounted for these big jumps in the cost of living that we will all now be facing. In due course, this could lead to more people ending up in arrears and possibly further repossessions.
Copy

Editor
Rob Peters
Principal at Simple Fast Mortgage
Whilst this data is clearly concerning, it reflects the situation at least 12 months ago. This is because property repossession is a long-drawn out last resort. Whilst, at first this may seem positive, given the current state of economic affairs, the data in another 12 months is almost certain to be much worse.
Copy

Tahina Akther
Barrister and Co-Founder at Wildcat Law
Repossessions are always a last resort and are often a lengthy legal process. This means the data we are seeing reflects the situation of many months ago. In short this is the COVID effect followed by the cost of living crisis. Many people have simply not recovered financially from COVID and hence there is no option available to lenders or the Courts but to repossess. Unfortunately this is the tip of a very large iceberg. We are seeing a large number of early stage cases. Many of these will no doubt ultimately end in repossessions. As we see more and more people exit cheap fixed rate deals only to face significant monthly repayment increases due to higher interest rates we will see more defaults. Families that are struggling to make ends meet now will be faced with a perfect financial storm later in the year, higher interest rates coupled with higher food and energy bills. To put this in perspective, we are a long way off the peaks of the early 1990's but then we are barely getting started with this latest recession.