More people received possession orders from April to June than they did over the same period last year, official statistics show.
Just over 28,600 repossession orders were issued in the UK from April to June, the government said today.
The new official statistics have tracked a 24 percent rise over the equivalent period in 2007, and a four percent increase over the first three months of this year. Continuing financial difficulties being faced by consumers as a result of the general economic downturn has been blamed for the trend.
According to the Council of Mortgage Lenders, around 19,000 people have lost their homes over the first six months of this year. However, these figures refer to completed repossessions, rather than repossession orders from mortgage firms which still have a chance of being cancelled by the homeowner making up their payments.
Speaking to the BBC, Adam Samson at housing charity Shelter said that rising prices were responsible for the latest figures.
"Every day Shelter is seeing more and more ordinary hardworking people who are terrified of losing their homes," he said. "They are being punished by rising household bills, escalating fuel charges and food prices that are going through the roof."
The latest Consumer Price Index, the government's preferred inflation measure, hit 4.4 percent last month. As well as being 2.4 percent above the Bank of England's target rate, this is also the highest level marked on the index for the last 16 years.
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