Repossession forecast lower than expected

Home repossessions in Britain next year will not be as bad as feared, the Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML) has said.

Bernard Clarke, a spokesman for the organisation, which represents the interests of mortgage providers in the UK, said that low interest rates have boosted borrowing for home purchases.

He added that government schemes have played a part in people seeking help with their finances earlier on, which in turn has reduced the risk of home repossession.

The CML has changed its repossessions forecast for 2009 twice this year, bringing its prediction down by 36 per cent.

"We started off originally expecting 75,000 repossessions, in the middle of the year we reduced that to 65,000 and when we published our data for the third quarter we reduced it again for 48,000," Mr Clarke explained.

"The outlook, while clearly higher than we've seen in some recent years, is not as bad as feared."

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