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Essential to keep up with tracker mortgage repayments

Date: Thu, 28 Apr 2005

It is essential to keep up to date with tracker mortgage payments as the number of house repossessions rises.

The Guardian reports that official figures show that the number of court actions to repossess houses has increased by over 35 per cent.

The study suggests that increases in recent interest rates are starting to take hold and that homeowners are struggling to meet payments.

According to the Department for Constitutional Affairs, the number of mortgage possession actions "entered" - the first step in the process for seizing a property, where a lender issues a summons in a county court - totalled 25,869 in the first three months of this year - over 35 per cent higher than the 19,155 actions entered in the same period during 2004, and 25 per cent up on the final three months of last year.

Actual orders made for repossessions reached 14,048 in the first three months of this year, a substantial increase from the 11,888 made in the last three months of 2004.

Keith Stevens, an insolvency partner at accountants Wilkins Kennedy, said: "As interest rates rise further and more discounted mortgages come to an end, we have to expect that more borrowers are going to find themselves under water."

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