Mortgage lenders are bracing themselves for increasing home repossessions.
Britain's mortgage lenders are to provide MPs with guidance on how to help constituents at risk of losing their home.
According to the Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML), a free internet course in home repossessions is also set to be launched for mortgage firms' staff in order to tackle the problem. The plans, revealed in a letter from the body to chancellor of the exchequer Alistair Darling, come in the wake of new figures from the CML predicting a 50 per cent rise in the number of Britons losing their homes this year.
The lenders predict that repossessions will rise to 45,000 in 2008: the highest figure since 1995. Around 27,500 repossession orders have been granted in England and Wales in the three months to March, with the ongoing slowdown in the UK economy - which has driven house prices down and inflation rates up - being blamed for the rise.
Michael Coogan, director-general of the CML, said in the letter: "With a worsening economic environment and an incomplete safety net for borrowers, we cannot be complacent about prospects and the challenges facing borrowers, lenders and public policy makers."
Latest house price figures from Halifax, the UK's biggest mortgage lender, show that the average value of a property dropped by 2.4 per cent last month.
