At the beginning of last year, the Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML) predicted that we would see somewhere in the region of £75,000 individual repossession cases in the UK for the year, form borrowers who had defaulted on their home owner loans, or other secured loans.

In September last year, this figure was revised to 48,000 and in the event, there were actually 46,000 homes repossessed. Although this is significantly lower than the CML’s original prediction, it is still the highest level of loan repossession in the past 14 years and an increase of 15 per cent above the figure for 2008.

The previous highest number of repossessions in a single year was back in 1995, when 49,900 homes were repossessed due to borrowers failing to keep up with the repayments on their home owner loans.

The good news, if there could be some in such a case, is that the number of repossessions actually fell during the last two quarters of the year, with 13 per cent fewer cases in the last three months of the year, compared with the third quarter.

Although the number of cases has fallen, the CML is still predicting that this year will still be a difficult one for people with home owner loans, with a total of 205,000 cases of loan arrears and a possible 53,000 repossession cases through loan arrears and defaults.

Michael Coogan of the CML commented on the figures, he said “This year will be a challenging year for many borrowers, and some households will inevitable find their finances being squeezed if and when interest rates eventually rise. But borrowers should be reassured that lenders want to help them keep their homes wherever possible.”