Last week Metro carried an article about the rise in the number of people being forced out of their homes by mortgage lenders or landlords. 16,600 properties were repossessed in the third quarter of 2011, a rise of 20%. The article clearly pointed out that ‘nearly half of the repossessions were carried out on behalf of mortgage lenders, while 5,140 tenants were evicted for social landlords and another 1,627 on behalf of private landlords.’ They quoted an expert claiming that the numbers would continue to rise as unemployment continued to bite. So far no surprise, but the article provoked a little tantrum from our housing minister. It was ‘Inaccurate and misleading’ he said. And why? Well, it was because the article was ‘lumping together statistics of homeowners, social tenants and private tenants’. Now the original article was not about tenure but about people losing their homes, whatever their tenure and whatever their circumstances. Read more on the Red Brick blog.
