February 2012

The latest figures for personal debt levels and industry statistics were published recently by Credit Action, the national money education charity. Again, these do not make pleasant reading and I hesitate to use the term but some of the "highlights" were:

• £55,823 was the average household debt (including mortages) in December 2011
• 8,652 new debt problems were handled by the CAB during the year to September
• 1,797 people were made redundant every day between September and November
• £15.68M of loans are written off every day by our banks and building societies
• every 14min 17sec a property is repossessed.

And now, it seems, we are entering the next dip on our recession roller coaster. To read the full report, please click here

London House News

February has been another busy month at London House. Last week we attended the Credit Services Association half year conference in Leicester. It was an information packed event, and very well attended. Topics covered included the recently introduced Financial Services Bill, The Edited Electoral Register and The OFT Debt Collection Guidance. The keynote speech this year was given by HM Treasury and covered the Government's proposals with regard to The FCA and future regulation.

This week we will be attending The Franchise Show at London ExCel. This will be our fourth year of exhibiting and this year's event promises to be bigger than ever. It is a great opportunity for prospective Franchise Owners to come and visit and have a chat about the London House network. For more details of the show, and get free visitor tickets, please click on the link.

You asked us

"How many offices do you have now?" 

We currently have 36 individual Franchise Owners who between them cover 63 UK postcode areas. A number of our Managers have added to their original territories and own a number of areas. We have offices extending from Exeter to Glasgow and Swansea to Ipswich, so it's fair to say we have the UK covered! This coverage is one of the reasons our clients choose to use London House. No matter where in the country an instruction is to be carried out, in all but a very small handful of cases it is a London House Franchise Owner that will do the work.

Focus On........Witness Statements

All of our Franchise Owners are experienced at taking statements of all types, whether for Court purposes or other. A number of our team have a Senior Police Officer background and are well versed in the skills needed to do the job right first time. Similarly, when a new Franchise Owner joins us, they complete a two week residential training programme and the completion of Witness Statements forms a part of that training and provides those that may not have undertaken such work before, the necessary abilities and confidence.

Who do you know?

We were recently instructed by one of our Solicitor clients to obtain a full witness statement. He was pursuing a personal injury claim for his client arising out of a road traffic accident. The independent witness to the accident, where a child was knocked down by a car in which all the occupants appeared to be arguing with each other and not paying attention to the road, needed to be contacted and an appointment made to give her statement. The problem was that she was Somalian and did not speak English very well. Could we help?

Using our extensive network of industry professionals, we were able to source an intepreter quickly and arranged for the witness to be interviewed. At interview our Franchise Owner asked the questions needed to complete the statement which were translated by the interpreter, with the responses translated back to English. Before long the statement was complete and read back in it's entirety to the witness in Somali who confirmed it to be a true reflection of the accident as she saw it.

Our report and statement were returned to the Solicitor who could now pursue the matter for his client. We await the outcome, but London House has again done its job.