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BankruptcyNews
Junior Member
358 Posts |
 Posted - 10 July 2007 : 13:39:09
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Don't get caught in debt trap
THE recent rise in interest rates will have been met with gritted teeth by most borrowers and there will be some people who just won't be able to take any more financial pain. A 5.75 per cent interest rate will tip them over the edge into unsustainable debt.
Debt is now the single biggest issue that Scots take to their front-line Citizens Advice Bureau (CAB) and, naturally, rising interest rates exacerbate the problem. For those who were already on the verge of financial collapse, this latest rise could be the straw that breaks the camel's back.
We are all facing significantly higher borrowing costs - higher interest rates, higher council tax, higher fuel bills. A recent report from the Institute of Fiscal Studies showed that debt and interest payments now consume more of the average family's income than at any time since the early 1990s.
And, of course, people over the past decade have been forced to take on bigger mortgages simply to get a foothold on the ladder in today's housing market. The average price of a house in Scotland at the start of the year was £126,639. Over the past five years, house prices here have risen by 97 per cent. Edinburgh remains the most expensive place to buy a house in Scotland with prices up 12 per cent over the year to an average of £202,941.
Although we are still nowhere near the house-repossession crisis of the early 1990s, CAB advisers are seeing growing numbers of people who risk losing their homes because they have fallen behind with mortgage payments. In fact, housing debt - including arrears on mortgages and secured loans - is one of the fastest growing problems in the CAB debt-caseload.
The Council of Mortgage Lenders has reported that property repossessions soared by 65 per cent last year.
The CAB service is seeing people who have taken on mortgages that stretch them to the absolute limit, people less likely to be cushioned by fixed-rate mortgages from the impact of interest rate rises. These are also the households most likely to be squeezed by the rising costs of other essential spending like council tax and utilities.
That's because mortgages are only one part of the overall debt-mountain that Britons have built up over the past ten to 15 years. Household borrowing, including mortgages, is now a staggering £1.3 trillion, the highest figure since records began - and it is increasing by £1m every four minutes. We need to ask ourselves what has made us the most indebted nation in Western Europe and how we can manage this down to more sustainable levels.
In the meantime, we would urge anybody in mortgage arrears to talk to their lender and get independent advice as soon as possible. This is available from your local CAB. And anyone taking on a new mortgage should check very carefully whether they can afford it if interest rates continue to rise - which unfortunately they seem likely to.
Source: thescotsman.co.uk
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Dont get caught in debt trap
