Am I the only one thinking like this? Do I have something here?

I'm not challenging the numbers that the Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML) and Ministry of Justice (MoJ) put out; my argument is that many people believe the situation is getting under control when in my view it isn’t. These press releases are not giving a true reflection of current market conditions, my reasons are as follows;

• the number of homes being sold by families to private landlords, under 'sale and rent back’ schemes, is not taken into account.
• It takes between 6 and 12 months to have a home repossessed, and the figures released are based upon house holders who experienced difficulty up to almost a year ago.
• The CML is only collecting the number of first charge holders. There is no record of how many second charge holders, usually secured loans, that are repossessing homes.
• The introduction of the Mortgage Pre-action Protocol last year could be delaying what will be eventual repossession for some home owners.

Sale and rent back schemes are conducted to prevent the home being repossessed and the seller then usually remains in the property, albeit owned by someone else, paying rent and effectively becoming a tenant.

The Financial Services Authority (FSA) estimates that some 50,000 of these homes have been sold under this scheme over the past few years and it is thought that up to half of these have been sold in 2008 alone. No one knows what the figure will be for this year.

I believe that because 'sale and rent back' was not an option back in 1991 when 76,000 homes were repossessed , the true figure for this year, without 'sale and rent back', would be 80,000 - 85,000 homes, making it higher than those figures back in 1991.

The Protocol launched by the Government last November gives clear guidance on what the courts expect lenders and borrowers to have done prior to a claim being issued. The main aims of it are to ensure that the parties act fairly and reasonably with each other in any matters concerning the mortgage arrears, to encourage more pre action contact between lender and borrower and to enable efficient use of the court’s time and resources.

With unemployment expected to reach 2.5 million by the end of the year, this will only add to the repossession figures.

Exceptionally low interest rates are helping to keep mortgage payments down and some people are using redundancy payments or credit cards to meet their mortgage commitments. However with interest rates expected to go up next year and with rising unemployment many families will continue to struggle. This is just a time bomb waiting to explode.