Property Repossession Fear Increasing
Economists Fear The Worst For Struggling UK Property Owners
Economists expect the recession and rising unemployment to squeeze the already stretched household finances of thousands of struggling families this year and are warning UK homeowners and landlords of a sharp rise in residential property repossessions.
Record low Bank of England (BoE) interest rates and lower than expected unemployment figures kept property repossessions to relatively small numbers through the worst days of the first half of the recession and they eased again as the country struggled into a tepid recovery.
However, with a double dip recession inevitably looming, workers incomes failing to cover spiralling household costs, the Government’s economic cutbacks and welfare reforms starting to bite whilst the beleaguered private sector fails to replace jobs lost in the public sector, economists are fearing the worst.
The Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML) had already forecast a 22% rise in UK property repossessions for 2012 increasing the annual property repossession figures to around 45,000.
The property repossession figures include private residential properties where mortgage payments have lapsed and Buy-To-Let properties where landlords did not have Rent Guarantee Insurance and have been unable to keep up with their buy-to-let mortgage repayments due to their tenants not paying the rent.
The property repossession figures don’t make for happy reading for worried home owners and landlords, who are aware that people’s employment circumstances, can change overnight. If the UK economy fails to show signs of a recovery and if unemployment continues to increase those figures could easily look much worse by the end of the year.
Landlords worried about the prospect of tenant evictions can protect their rental income stream with Rent Guarantee Insurance – one of the wide range of specialist landlord and letting agent products and services offered by Legal4Landlords.
