If you were here on Sunday, you’d have read about the National Housing Federation’s (NHF) figures on house building over the last 7 years and we’re sorry to say that if you’re facing a repossession order then the rest of the research doesn’t make for any easier reading. In addition to there being a massive  4.5 million people on the property waiting list in the UK, there are also over 2.5 million people currently living in overcrowded conditions.

The shortage is affecting residents in every corner of the UK, with some areas more worse off than others, here’s some figures on house building targets covering 2002 to 2009:

London built 142,180 homes, it’s target was 210,000.

The North East built 47,000 with a target of 58,350.

The South West delivered 123,110 homes, it’s target was 150,823.

One of the better areas was Yorkshire and Humberside, they built 100,830 properties with a target of 110,100.

Of all the years looked at by the NHF, 2008/09 left the most UK residents wanting with most of the major urbanised areas of the UK missing targets by around 50%.

Have you seen the findings of the National Housing Federation (NHF) research? They reckon the housing crisis is set to continue and get worse, after assessing the last 7 years of house build numbers. Their findings show that for every year since 2002 there has been an inadequate number of properties built in every single region.

When looking for a reason to explain the lack of construction, the NHF put it down to regional planning authorities failing to ensure that enough homes are being built. Really, this shouldn’t happen as they all have agreements with government agencies to prevent this occuring. A lack of housing could not have come at a worse time with a massive 4.5m people waiting for a property. Stay tuned for more on this story.

In an attempt to kick-start the Scottish housing market, a new National Housing Trust will be unveiled that will look to build 1,000 new homes and give councils up to £130 million to do up unused properties. The new properties, whether built or renovated, will be aimed at lower income owners and tenants with a focus on affordable homes for rent.

The injection of cash backs up previous schemes offering repossession advice and is also expected to create or secure around 1000 construction jobs and boost Scottish economy as a whole over the next few years. The money will be firstly apportioned to areas where there is a shortage of affordable housing, combined with a high demand for rentable properties.

A housing market lifesaver has been thrown out to a sea of first-time buyers after Chancellor Alistair Darling abolished stamp duty on all property sales of £250,000 and under. From April 6th, all those eager to get a foot on the bottom rung of the housing ladder now have a better chance of doing so.

Despite the positive news, housing market experts say that although welcomed, the decision will only provide small stimulus as wannabe homeowners will still have to find 20% 0f the property value for a deposit. There’s a rush for a quick house sale at the other end of the market to get sales of properties over £1 million through before 6th April, after which those buyers must pay 5%.

A mother of 8 same aged babies is facing eviction from her home in southern California because she hasn’t kept up the repayments. Nadya Suleman has fallen into arrears after mortgage holder Amer Haddadin signed the property over to Ms Suleman’s father last year. Ed Suleman then leased the home to his daughter and was supposed to pay around £2,500 a month with a one off payment of £300,000 due in March.

Mr Haddadin is to start repossession proceedings because none of the family have made the necessary repayments and they missed the balloon payment. Whether the family home can avoid repossession is down to the lender and any court proceedings that follow.

There was a victory for joe public recently when the Court of Appeal ruled in favour of a Jayne Hewett, a mother who was threatened by repossession. Mrs Hewett ended up facing repossession after taking out a remortgage on their family home to pay off her husband’s credit card debts.

At the time she remortgaged, Mr Hewett was having a secret affair after which he moved out of the house, leaving his wife and two children to pay for the mortgage. As a result of the divorce, sole ownership of the house was transferred to Mrs Hewett but she was unable to make the repayments.

Thankfully, the Court of Appeal in London and Mr Justice Briggs found in favour of Mrs Hewett and that Mr Hewett was guilty of a ‘deliberate concealment’ that ‘impacted on his wife’s decision to go ahead with the remortgage’. Under the conditions of the ruling, lender, First Plus Financial Group, can  still repossess the house, but Mrs Hewett should be able to keep half sale price achieved by the mortgage provider.

Following on from yesterday’s blog about the recent FSA figures and the positive final quarter of ‘09, new arrears cases also fell by 9% during the three months to 41,000. But that was the only good news as by the end of 2009, 378,000 borrowers had fallen behind on their mortgage repayments, this number represents 3.42% of all UK mortgage customers.

Although these figures seem high, they match roughly with ones reported by the Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML) for 2009 and represent the highest levels of arrears since 1995. Overall, the number of people facing a repossession order reported by both the FSA and CML was lower than what was originally predicted, a figure closer to 75,000.

A spot of repossession news: Unsurprisingly, the number of people who lost their homes in 2009 was 15% higher than in 2008, according to Financial Services Authority (FSA) figures. In total, 54,055 were unable to stop repossession during the year, a rise from 46,945 in 2008.

There is some good news though, as well as coming out of the recession in the final quarter of ‘09, there was also a drop in the number of repossessions and the number of people who were unable to keep up their mortgage payments. In total 11,800 homes were repossessed in the final three months of ‘09, a rather considerable 15% fewer than during the previous quarter.

In the USA, car repossession laws state that a vehicle may not be repossessed if there is a person inside. Fair enough, but one woman from Dallas, Texas took this law to the extreme by throwing her child through a back window to prevent a repo man from taking the vehicle.

Krystal Gardner launched her 1 year-old son into the back of her SUV as it was being repossessed, fortunately the baby was uninjured in the incident. Gardner wasn’t so luck though as she ended up with a jail term for child endangerment related to abandonment, plus the small matter of no insurance and no licence.

Job losses and negative economic side effects, this is what one building federation warned of if funding for the building of affordable housing in the Highlands gets cut. The Scottish Building Federation (SBF) made this stark warning after the Highland Council announced that Scottish government support between 2011/12 is proposed to be cut from £32m to £17.5m.

The fact that affordable housing is essential for repossession victims as well as first time buyers has not escaped the SBF and they believe it gets worse… the SBF said the knock-on effect would be less construction work, less jobs, firms going broke and the local people and economy suffering.