The Ministry of Justice has said that lenders are moving to secure credit card and loan debt agains houses. This is a further sign of the jitters that are affecting the lending industry as the credit crunch continues to bite.
British borrowers with credit card and loan debt will work an average of seventy days this year to repay interest on their borrowings, a report claims.
According to a survey by the Financial Services Authority (FSA), almost a fifth of mortgage payers are worried about their ability to meet repayments in the next twelve months, and a quarter of these have no plans in place to deal with the situation.
Last year in the UK, debt collection agencies and bailiffs chased 20 million cases of debt default.
Many of these firms are using aggressive, yet legal, collection methods, and now there are calls for a clamp-down on collectors.
A report out today suggests that parents are secretly saving to pay off debts run up by their children while at university.
Savings bank ING Direct, which published the report, says that many parents are keeping the savings a secret because they fear that if their offspring were aware of the safety net they would spend even more.
KPMG, one of the biggest accounting firms, is warning that more than 10 million people may default on credit repayments before the end of 2008.
Millions of people may have to come to terms that their take-home pay is not enough to service repayments on mortgages, personal loans and credit cards
Local councils appear to be taking a tough stance over council tax debt, and are petitioning for bankrupcies over debts of as little as £1200.
It is thought that authorities are getting tough over arrears in order to meet govenment-set performance targets.
New figures released by the Citizens Advice Bureau (CAB) once again show the extent of Britain’s personal debt problems, with the number of people seeking help rising by 20%.
The Council of Mortgage Lenders have reported a steep rise in the number of homes being repossessed, with an estimated 14,000 properties being seized in the first half of the year, up 30% from the same period last year. It’s not all bad news apparently though, as the number of mortgages in arrears fell slightly over the same period, 3% down to around 125,000.
The latest official figures show a rather unexpected fall in the number of people in England and Wales becoming insolvent. A shade under 27,000 people went into insolvency during April to June this year, and although the figure represents a 4.2% rise on the total for the same period last year, it is a drop off of 8.1% on the figure for the first quarter.