Recent figures from the Financial Services Authority (FSA) revealed that in the 3rd quarter of this year, repossessions were down on the previous 3 months. The reasons for this are lower interest rates, more lenient lenders and Government initiatives.

The lates Government backed scheme to help homeowners keep their properties is a series of workshops to help families avoid repossession. The first of the workshops will be in Scunthorpe, Lincolnshire which is an official hotspot for repossession due to the large number or residents facing a court order for repossession and high levels of unemployment. The workshops will be carried out with the help of the Citizens’ Advice Bureau (CAB) and will offer real, face-to-face support and advice.

Great news: HM Government is to close a gaping legal loophole that would allow a lender to repossess your home without even going to court. The decision comes after an all to familiar case earlier this year when lender GMAC-RFC repossessed a property and the previous owner was evicted. This incident started a campaign by charities to stop house repossession orders being issued ‘at the drop of a hat’ and close the loophole that allows lenders to take a property from a homeowner who had missed just two repayments

The decision to go with the charities was made by the Ministry of Justice after an eight-week consultation and will hopefully ensure that the likes of GMAC-RFC cannot simply force a homeowner out of their property based on weak arguements and slippery lawyers. Thankfully, they were fined £2.8m by the Financial Services Authority (FSA) for mistreating customers so there is some justice in the world (incase you were beginning to doubt the fact).

We’ve all heard of a shocking repossession tale, where a lender mercilessly takes a home from a family without the bat of an eyelid. The thing is, this has been happening too often over the last 18 months as banks and lenders skip protocol and go straight to court to try and get some money back in the coffers.

It’s an all too familiar story, as we heard on monday, but there are some cases that really stand purely for how bad lenders can get. Check out this article in the Daily Mail about single mum and nurse Bola Eriksola who was on the receiving end of mis-selling and unfair repossessing by lender Rooftop, have a read.

Unsurprisingly, a report published recently has found that mortgage lenders are still failing to fully help their customers avoid repossession. We blogged about this back in early November with a focus on GMAC-RFC, the major mortgage lender that got it’s just desserts. The recent report, conducted by AdviceUK, the CAB and Shelter, uncovered that in as many as a third of recorded cases mortgage lenders had failed to use court action as a last resort only.

The new protocol states that before starting any legal action lenders should provide borrowers with other options to deal with any missed repayments, but many had been completely ignoring this. This report arrived a few days after the latest economic figures from the FSA which still show alarmingly high repossession rates.