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.

Court action over mortgage debt also slowed down slightly, with just under 33,000 entering into the first legal stages of the repossession process during the second quarter of 2007 - although the drop is perhaps statistically irrelevant standing at only 0.2%.

CML director Michael Coogan said that repossession figures were still low by historical standards, and that changes in the way it calculates the figures may have played at least some part in the rise. Repossessions were also much more commonplace in the ’sub prime’ market than among mainstream mortgage borrowers.

This entry was posted on Monday, August 6th, 2007 at 3:26 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.