Mortgage and Landlord Possession Actions, January to March 2012

The latest statistics on mortgage and landlord possession actions include data for England and Wales for the period January to March 2012 and will update the statistics previously released by the Ministry of Justice on 9th February 2012.

The Ministry of Justice publish figures on the numbers of possession claims issued and claims leading to an order being made in the county courts of England and Wales on a quarterly basis. The possession action figures do not indicate how many homes have actually been repossessed as not all court orders result in repossession and repossessions can occur without a court order being made.

The key points for Wales from the latest bulletin are(1):

• The numbers of mortgage possession claims issued and claims leading to orders made in the county courts of Wales have remained relatively stable over the last two years after falling from the peak in 2008. Latest figures show that there were 1,185 mortgage claims and 895 claims leading to orders during January to March 2012, down by 12 per cent and down by 10 per cent respectively on the same quarter of 2011.
• Not all court orders result in actual repossessions. In fact figures from the Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML)(2) show that over the last two years an average of around 65 per cent of mortgage possession orders in England and Wales led to full repossession.
• The numbers of landlord possession claims issued and claims leading to orders made in the county courts of Wales have generally been falling since 2006. During January to March 2012 there were 1,595 landlord possession claims which is the same as the January to March quarter 2011 but 1,120 claims leading to orders which is up by 4 per cent compared with the same quarter of 2011. Over three quarters of both claims and orders were made on behalf of social landlords.

(1) All figures shown are not seasonally adjusted.
(2) Source: Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML) data for England and Wales. Please see the CML website for more information.

Further information

Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML) website: Statistics.

Ministry of Justice website: Mortgage and landlord possession statistics.

Contact

Tel: 029 2082 5055
E-mail: stats.housing@wales.gsi.gov.uk

Next update

August 2012 (provisional - to be confirmed on 'Due out Soon' page)