Back in late November we blogged about the shocking fact that tenants need only be given 24 hours notice prior to an eviction due to a landlord not keeping up with repayments. It’s a very worrying loophole for the millions of renters across the UK but now, a bid to give private tenants greater protection from repossession has been launched in the House of Commons.

Labour Minister Brian Iddon has put forward his Mortgage Repossessions (Protection of Tenants) Bill which would give tenants more notice and cease the turmoil that is currently caused to over 3,000 people a year. Under the Bill, tenants would be given up to 2 months notice of a repossession order instead of the current legal requirement of 24 hours.

What many people fail to consider when they face a repossession is that a foreclosure is almost as painful for the lender as it is for the home owner and for this reason, lenders will do all they can to avoid it. This is now even more likely after the Financial Services Authority (FSA) recently revealed their new measures for stuggling property owners. These will ensure that owners in financial difficulty will be treated in a fair and appropriate way by the company to which they owe money.

One of the major FSA proposals for change to repossession laws is to stop stop lenders charging customers monthly fees who arranged to pay off their arrears over time and are actually keeping good on their word.

Did you hear the news? Browns lot are going to cut spending on housing and although it may be a necessary evil to cut costs, the housing market is one area that sorely needs cash. The hardest hit part of the market will be the schemes that are currently ongoing to try and get the market off it’s knees, these are likely to have their budget cut and few more will be started.

For those with a house to sell, it could mean good news, with the number of properties available staying low and mortgages increasing you could avoid a repossession order by getting a fairly quick sale. But in the longer term, it could mean sharp rises in house prices to the unsustainable highs of the last 10 years.

And now for a spot of good news…the housing market is looking up! Yes, you read right, according to British Bankers Association figures, the number of approved mortgages in December was higher than any month since the end of 2007.

Even better news is that in November alone over 60,000 loans were in the process of being approved and all were for those wnating to buy a property. This figure is also a noteable high, the last time the number was at this level was March 2008 and 60,000 ismore than twice previous November’s amount. All of which means if you want to stop repossession through the sale of your property, you may be in luck with mortgages advances up at £10.2bn in December.

In announcement made by the Government last week, proposals are afoot to reduce the supply of shared housing to UK citizens, a move which could have serious implications for the make-up of your neighbourhood. If the proposals become law, landlords will require planning permission for new shared properties containing 3 or more unrelated tenants.

Currently, 1/5 of all privately rented properties are shared by 3 or more unrelated people, often students, young professionals, house repossession victims and low income individuals. With landlords across the UK feeling the pinch at the moment, who knows if they’ll be prepared to go through time-consuming red tape in order to have such a property on their books.

The threat of repossession is at it’s greatest and Government figures suggest over 50,000 home owners will be unable to avoid repossession thoughout 2010. As if that wasn’t bad enough, the housing market is at a virtual stand still as mortgages are hard to come buy and homes remain on sale for long periods of time.

To alleviate the issue, local councils are trying to build affordable housing which will help locals kick start the housing market across the country. And despite the doom and gloom, it’s nice to see one council involving the community on such projects. In Bridport the local housing authority have allowed a schoolboy to name a new housing development in the village of Charmouth. Jamie went for the name ‘Heritage Mews’ and was inspired to do so by his passion for collecting fossils, nice.

One US company that receives repossessed items from citizens nationwide has a warehouse so full that they’ve come up with a novel way to offer the public great bargains. Repo Depot Auctions are hosting online auctions starting at just one dollar for items such as sports memorabilia, jewelry, artwork, cars and even boats.

Obviously online auctions are nothing new, with ebay, Police auctions and Government auctions already well established but with the glut of property on offer, they’re sure to be selling many bargains to happy customers. Lets hope that some good can come from the repossession of UK items if a similar idea takes off over here.

2009 saw a continued troubled economy with all the ingredients of a recession, including the tightening of purse strings and a massive drop in new car sales. So, to do something about it, HM Gov. introduced the car scrappage scheme which allowed new car buyers to get a wedge of cash for their old motor, which would make a shiney new-car-smell more affordable.

Interestingly, they’ve got a similar scheme in the USA called the Car Allowance Rebate System or CARS, clever, see what they did there? But research conducted at the beginning of 2010 has revealed that CARS scheme buyers have a higher repossession and late payment rate than those who bought their new car for the full price. Nearly 5% of the buyers have received a repossession order for their vehicles compared to a similar group of buyers not using the scheme facing a 2% repossession rate.

Seeing as what happens in the US usually acts as a fore-warning for the UK, we could well see a whole load of car repossessions as a result of the Scrappage scheme.

On Christmas eve, we told you about Isabel Luevano, the San Jose mum that had her car repossessed with her baby son still in it. The single mother of three had left her car running in the driveway while she went get her 6-year-old daughter, when a repo man took her Honda and drove off.

In California, the car repossession laws state that a vehicle can be repossessed without any prior warning and Luevano was late with her monthly payment of $285. Anyway, to the point of this post… the story prompted lots of support and donations to help get the car back, one man donated $50, other strangers sent in cheques but one individual handed over $600. Luevano got her Honda back, and celebrated by paying her bills with the extra $700 that people had sent her. Happy Ending.