Thousands in Britain could be homeless by Christmas
Report on Yahoo.co.uk
http://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/Tho...607981690.html
Every two minutes between now and Christmas Day, someone in Britain will face the prospect of losing their home. That's the finding of new research from the housing charity Shelter, highlighting the struggles the property market still faces.
According to the charity's research, around 35,000 people face a battle to keep a roof over their head in time for Santa's arrival.
The charity has launched a campaign to highlight the plight of the hundreds of people each day who will receive a letter threatening them with homelessness, and the impact such an experience can have on their mental health.
Shelter's research found that 61% of people who have either been homeless or faced the threat of homelessness said it had led directly to a stress related illness.
Repossession, repossession, repossession
Every quarter, the Council of Mortgage Lenders publishes figures on the number of repossessions that have taken place, and of late the message has been pretty positive, with the figures regularly being lower than expected.
As a result, people like me can get a little bit complacent about it. After all, the number of properties repossessed in the first half of this year was down 7% on the same period last year. Good news right?
Well yes, but that was still 18,100 properties that lenders took back from borrowers.
And that's just the number of repossessions that actually took place, what about the borrowers who are simply being warned that if things don't improve, they may lose their homes? There are currently 164,500 mortgages where the borrower is in arrears of more than 2.5% of the mortgage balance. Sure, that figure has fallen, but it's still an awful lot of people who are seriously behind on their mortgage payments.
Undoubtedly, some of these people will have no-one but themselves to blame. Perhaps they told a few porky pies in order to get a larger mortgage than they should have, and now the chickens have come home to roost. But equally, plenty of them will simply be victims of circumstance, caught out by an economic crash that was not their fault.
Kicking out tenants
The situation is hardly any better in the rental market.
Social landlords are already reporting a rise in rent arrears following the government's move to reduce housing benefit earlier this year. Meanwhile, research by the Financial Inclusion Centre earlier this year concluded that as many as three million renters are in a vulnerable position, either behind on their rent or struggling to pay it each month.
What's more, with rents continuing their astronomic rise — barely a month goes by without one firm active in the rental market proclaiming a new record high — this is only likely to get worse.
We've never had it so tough
Last year, an adviser to the government, Lord Young, was forced to resign after an interview in which he suggested that as a nation, we had never had it so good (he's back, with his own office in Number 10 now, by the way). A year on, that statement looks even dafter.
Inflation currently stands at a mammoth 5.2%, miles higher than the Bank of England's target of 2%. And our salaries aren't moving upwards at anything like that rate, if at all. Add to that the fact that job security continues to weaken, with unemployment now at a 17-year high, and it becomes clear that pennies have rarely been so tightly stretched. We can't even rely on a return on our cash if we've managed to save in the past, with rates on savings accounts utterly underwhelming.
In fact, for some, it's only the fact that interest rates are so low therefore keeping variable mortgage rates low too, that is keeping things from completely collapsing.
What to do
So, if you're in a position where the bills are mounting up, and there's little sign of things improving, what do you do?
Tackling your money issues early is always the best plan of action. And as BT used to say, it's good to talk.
There are all sorts of charities and organisations which offer debt advice without charging. For example, there's the Consumer Credit Counselling Service (CCCS). It's not just the CCCS though, there's also Citizens Advice, the National Debtline, and a host of others.
It's also well worth having a chat with the firms you owe money. It may be that you can come to some sort of arrangement where you have longer to pay off the money you owe.
However, the absolute worst thing you can do is ignore your mounting debts, hoping that something will change and everything will be fine again. This 'head in the sand' attitude can end up making things a whole lot worse, and is utterly counterproductive.
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So there you have it, instil fear in many just before xmas!
What I did like was a reply by Lawful to Mr H who had paid off his mortgage:
Mr H, you said it right, you get what you work for - "lucky me", you are lucky. You managed to pay off the debt and the interest. You now own your home. Well done. However as all money is created from debt, and only the principle is ever created, then you getting the extra money to pay the interest as well, means mathematically someone else WILL DEFAULT, no matter how much work, education or get up and go they have. You will deny this, becuase to accept it would give you some of the responsibility to change the system. Also you wouldn't be stupid enough to lose your house over it. Far better to plead ignorance about it and blame others for not working, when we know very well that the majority, like you, have worked all the lives and worked @#$% hard.
All new "money" in the banking system is created as debt (ever wonder why every country has a HUGE national debt, and who they owe it to???) when we get loans, mortgages etc, we owe that money to the banks even though it is us that creates the money with our signature. This IS the new money in the monetary system!!! Quantitive Easing is creating more money, not printing notes and minting coins, it is literally just putting more 0's on the national debt computer screen that the gove owes to the Bank of England. Then we pay our taxes and fines so the Gov can pay back the Bank of England. They charge us interest which is never created at any point. So the system is mathematically obliged to fail and eventually the value of the currency will return to it's true intrinsic value which is...0!! If everyone paid off their loan then obviously the game would end, which the bankers (Central not High St)can't allow. What we need to do and what occupy wall st and the ilk is really about (they'll never put this on the news) is educating people about our banking sytem.
If we got everyone to work and I mean EVERYONE, working as hard as they could, willingly with no dossers, the system would still create people that would run out of money. When money is created it is only the "principle" that is created. Not the interest. So if you pay off the interest on your loan/mortgage, someone somewhere in the system HAS to fail. This is how our money system is always expanding, to create more money to pay off the interest on previous loans. THIS is why the U:S owes 14 trillion, this is why they borrowed more to pay the last installment, this is why Greece is getting a 2nd bailout, this is what QE is all about. THIS is why we have inflation. If you have more of something it is worth less. If you have more money, it is worth less. So against all products or resources, your money buys less. Inflation is not prices going up, it is the value of your money going DOWN!! What can you buy with a pound now? what could you buy with a pound in 1960? What about in 1930?? A good introduction to all this is "Money as debt" on google videos. We need to understand this, or it gets so bad that eventually we all will be on the streets or worse, they'll bring the work houses back. This isn't a joke, we are seeing the banking system crumble worldwide like a house of cards because it is infact a few hundred year old PONZI scheme.
Sir Josiah Stamp, Director, Bank of England 1928-41, (reputed to be the 2nd richest man in England) once said:
"The modern banking system manufactures money out of nothing.The process is perhaps the most astounding piece of sleight of hand that was ever invented. Banking was conceived in iniquity and born in sin. Bankers own the Earth. Take this away from them, but leave them the power to create money, and with the flick of the pen they will create enough money to buy it back again ...Take this great power away from them and all great fortunes like mine will disappear, and they ought to disappear, for then this would be a better and happier world to live in. But if you want to continue to be slaves to the banks and pay the cost of your own slavery, then let bankers continue to create money and control credit."
98, Executive turbo estate in aluminum silver. The stealth wagon! Now departed, New project Xsara VTR-8 in progress, Next Project, 406 D8 / JAP. So will be looking for a 406 again when the xsara is done!
