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News

NEWS

May 2008

Government to provide help for individuals facing house repossession

Department of Justice figures reveal a 17% year on year increase in applications to Court for repossession. There were 27,530 applications in the first quarter of 2008. The Government is to provide a new debt advice service, specialist training for Citizens advice service and free legal representation for repossessions in all county courts.

May 2008

Gloomy week for the Economy

The Bank of England yesterday decided to keep its Base Rate at 5% despite economic indicators showing rising prices. The British Retail Consortium had earlier reported that food prices had risen in April by 4.7% compared to a year ago. The Office for National Statistics had also reported a 0.5% fall in manufacturing output in March. Rising food and fuel prices are threatening the Government’s inflation target.

March 2007

The Office of Fair Trading has clamped down on 17 businesses promoting IVAs that it considered were potentially misleading consumers through their adverts and websites.
Of particular concern were a number of potentially misleading statements, such as;

• Falsely claiming that “up to 90 per cent of your debt may be written off” when the maximum would be in the region of 60-70%
• Falsely implying they can guarantee a favourable outcome by the use of such phrases as “stop all interest and charges”
  
• Failing to state that homeowners may be required to re-mortgage their properties after three years
  
• Failing to state that entering into an IVA also affects an individual’s credit rating for six years.

Lines Henry welcomes these steps. The unrealistic claims of some in the industry have long been a problem. The purpose of an IVA is for there to be a realistic and fair Proposal by a debtor to all of their unsecured creditors. It has to be fair and realistic to both debtor and creditors. IVA’s should not be looked at as a debt avoidance scheme, but rather the best offer in what are invariably difficult circumstances for all concerned.

February 2007

The first few weeks of 2007 have brought a high level of work to Lines Henry. We have seen three double glazing businesses, all from different areas of the country. Each had a similar story, from December the normal level of enquiries just dried up.

At this stage it’s hard to say what, if anything, is going on. The rise in interest rates last month and anticipated future rises during 2007 are likely to have a severe impact on “discretionary spending”.

We are aware from our IVA business that many people currently have fixed rate mortgages. Upwards of 60% of borrowers have fixed rate deals at the moment, to protect themselves against interest rate fluctuations. These are normally fixed for 5 years or less. There are approximately 50,000 households per month coming off fixed rate deals, who need to secure a new deal. Anyone currently paying 3.99% may well now be faced with an increase of 50%, in interest, when their current deal ends.

Following the rise in interest rates last month, a number of lenders suspended fixed rate products and some withdrew their entire range. It will be interesting to see how this affects consumer confidence over the next 12 months. We certainly anticipate an increase in enquiries from the retail sector and those businesses supplying non essential goods and services.

20 January 2006

The Insolvency Service has disclosed that from April to November 2005 there were 414 company directors disqualified. Anyone subject to disqualification is prohibited, during the term of the order from acting as a director of a company; taking part, whether directly, or indirectly, in the promotion, formation or management of a company

10 January 2006

Liquidations up 14.2%. The latest DTI figures reveal that by the third quarter of 2005 there had been a 14.2% increase in the number of liquidations entered into by companies in England and Wales during the same period a year ago.

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