The Council of Mortgage Lenders has reported that the number of people missing mortgage payments has rocketed to 77,000 a month in the first six months of 2007, compared to an average of 36,000 a month in the whole of 2006.

The rise is blamed on recent hikes in interest rates, and with the built-in time lag between rate rises and their effects being seen, it is feared that the picture could get even bleaker for households struggling to meet their commitments.

As most people with debt problems make their mortgage payments a priority, falling into arrears is a sure sign of real financial distress, and anyone getting into this situation should contact their mortgage lender as soon as possible to discuss ways forward.

Many people can alleviate their problems through a remortgage, clearing their arrears and also consolidating other debts, but time is of the essence - the longer you’ve been in arrears, the more difficult you’ll find it to get a remortgage at anything like a reasonable deal.

Latest figures suggest that at the turn of the year there were around 59,000 mortgages with arrears of between three and six months, which is the kind of area in which repossession proceedings become a real possibility.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 10th, 2007 at 12:32 pm and is filed under Mortgage Debt. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.