The Press Association: Home repossession numbers fall

The Press Association: Home repossession numbers fall

The number of home repossessions has fallen to its lowest level in a year and-a-half despite the toughening economy, lenders have said.
There were 8,500 repossessions between April and June this year, marking the lowest quarterly total since the last three months of 2010, said the Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML).
The CML said the figures indicate that repossessions are so far on a "lower trajectory" than its previous forecast that they will rise to 45,000 by the end of the year. But it warned that the stable pattern could still be disrupted amid the Bank of England's weak forecasts for economic growth.
A spokesman for the CML said the body is maintaining its previous prediction that repossessions will increase by the end of this year, as the "uncertain backdrop" of the wider economy remains and household finances are still under intense pressure amid high unemployment and low wage increases.
There were 18,100 repossessions in the first six months of this year, a figure which is less than half of the total predicted by the CML for the whole of 2012. But the number of borrowers with high levels of arrears has been creeping up, which is a position they will find it quite difficult to recover from, the CML spokesman said.
There were 28,300 mortgages with arrears of more than 10% of the balance, an increase from 28,000 during the previous quarter. The number of mortgages in arrears generally remained broadly flat in the second quarter, the figures showed.