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Mortgage misery as repossessions rocket

27 October 2008

Home repossessions will rocket in the run up to Christmas and the New Year – and it will be Britain's middle classes who will feel crunch as they default on their monthly payments.

This is despite calls for lenders to 'go easy' on struggling families in the current economic climate.

The ticking time-bomb of self-certification mortgages – those given to the self-employed – is the next to explode, according to property expert Aaron Turner.

"These mortgages – known as Alt A – are one up from sub-prime, the riskiest category" says Turner, who's also the owner of Look4aproperty.com, one of Britain’s top online property websites.

"These 'self cert' mortgages account for nearly three million loans in this country and we're seeing the first signs that repossessions are beginning to affect professional people".

The latest Land Registry figures due out tomorrow (Tuesday, 28^th October) are expected to show another significant fall in average house prices in England and Wales during September.

The previous month saw the average house price go down by 4.6% to £174,493.

Concern that 'self cert' was being used as a way for people to borrow beyond their means prompted the FSA – which regulates the mortgage lending business – to clamp down on their use in recent years. 

However, for many home owners these measures may be too late.

Rising prices, vanishing bonuses, the threat of redundancy and a need to cut back on expenditure are all taking their toll on the more affluent sector of society.

"It means that some people who were relatively well off this time last year will inevitably be really struggling and the inflated salaries they said were earning to get their mortgages will come to haunt them in the form of home repossession" said Mr Turner.

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