Property Rescue Blog

Personal debt in the UK is reaching new heights. The first three months of this year saw almost a quarter of a million County Court Judgements (CCJs) issued on unpaid debts such as mortgages and credit cards. Three years ago the number of CCJs stood at approximately 125,000 per quarter – just half of what it is today. The new figures were released by the Registry Trust at the end of May.

At the end of March total UK personal debt was £1,318 billion, which represents a rate of debt growth of around 10% per annum. Secured lending – i.e. loans such as mortgages made against property – stood at £1,104 billion, an increase of 11.5% from the previous year.

On the one hand it seems that banks and lending institutions are prepared to lend more, but on the other hand it looks as if they are getting tough when people don’t pay. CCJs on unsecured loans are often backed up by action from baliffs which means property is likely to be removed from your home and sold in order to pay your debts. If your loan is secured against your property however, you face the very real threat of having your home repossessed.

Property Rescue can help you clear your debts or get rid of the threat of repossession. In some instances people have both mortgage arrears and credit card debts and in these cases Property Rescue will work with you to clear both, allowing you to make a fresh start. Contact them for more information and an informal, no obligation chat.

Most people look forward to retirement as a time when they can spend more time with family and friends, do some travelling, take up a hobby or simply relax. Ideally, that’s exactly what retirement should be, but for some the ideal and the reality are worlds apart.

The people who can count on company pensions – especially final salary schemes – are becoming fewer and despite warnings many of us choose to spend our hard earned cash rather than put sufficient money into our pension plans to allow us to remain affluent after we retire. The Pensions Advisory service has this week said that as many as ten million employees could have a shortfall in their pension because they are not part of a company pension scheme.

As house prices increase and people take on larger mortgages or release equity in their homes to fund other purchases, it is becoming more common for mortgages to extend past the normal retirement age. For these people a significant drop in income could be a real problem; the only solutions to which are to continue the mortgage over a longer period of time and hence reduce the monthly payments, or sell up and move to a less expensive property.

If you find yourself needing to sell your home to liquidate your assets you should bear in mind the services offered by Property Rescue. Realistically priced homes in sought after areas are likely to be snapped up by buyers, but for those that are in need of repair, have structural problems or are less attractive to the average buyer, a sale may be hard to come by. Property Rescue guarantee to buy your property, no matter what its condition. Get in touch to explore the options rather than continue the struggle of managing a debt you can ill afford.

Personal debt figures are always hitting the headlines. But what do these figures include and how many people in the UK do they affect?

Personal debt can be divided into three basic categories – secured lending (i.e. a mortgage), unsecured consumer lending (for example, a loan for your car or for your furniture), and credit card debt. Over the past ten years all three types of debt have spiralled upwards and at the end of 2006 the nation’s personal debt total topped ?1,291 billion. In the month of December 2006 alone, consumer credit lending grew by ?1 billion.

The average household debt is now almost ?8,800 and that doesn’t include mortgages. Of course, for every household that has a debt there is one that has no debt whatsoever, so this average figure means that some households owe way more than the ?8,800 mark and, in all likelihood, their debt will be increasing rather than diminishing especially where debt has been run up on high interest credit cards. It’s a fact of life that some people can’t even keep up with their interest payments let alone start to repay the loan itself. It’s estimated that around one in ten people in the UK have ‘unmanageable’ levels of debt.

Perhaps the worse thing that can be done about personal debt is….nothing! To stick one’s head in the sand and refuse to face painful truths about financial circumstances is never the answer. The local Citizens Advice Bureau will be only too pleased to help you work out how best to go about repaying your debt and examine the options with you, explaining the consequences of personal bankruptcy and, in some cases, liaising on your behalf with the companies to whom you owe money.

For the unlucky few, personal debt goes beyond their credit card and starts to threaten their everyday security and welfare. If you are under threat of having your home repossessed because you are unable to keep up your mortgage repayments, you need to take action as quickly as possible. Ignoring the problem will not make it go away! Property Rescue can offer a lifeline to people in this situation through purchasing their home but allowing them to stay where they are as tenants. They also give the option for the sellers to buy back their home at a later date if they wish to do. If they decide not to, there’s no obligation for them to proceed and they can simply stay where they are, continuing their occupation of the property as tenants.

Selling your home is never the first option, but for some it can mean the difference between a secure family life and becoming homeless. Another huge advantage for those who have accrued considerable personal debt is that the sale of their home frees up money to clear those debts and start again with a clean sheet. Property Rescue will talk to you about how this can be achieved at the time your home is valued.

There is never any obligation to proceed once Property Rescue have given you a valuation on your home. You won’t be hassled by salespeople calling or phoning, and even if you do go ahead, the whole process is discreet and completely confidential. You can find further details on ‘sell and rent back’ and ‘buy back’ options on the Property Rescue website.