August 2012

Recent news has, rightly, been dominated by the Olympics and what a fantastic show it was. Our best ever performance at the Games was surely helped by the public who seemed to become overwhelmingly involved in their desire to be a part of the event. Team GB can be very proud.

In the background, there has been talk of a cut in Base Rate, further revelations about LIBOR, banking fines, and a hint of the next possible "scandal" - packaged bank accounts. Life goes on!

Continuing the Olympics theme, last month we made mention of Rajiv Ouseph, a 25 year old English badminton player currently representing England as the No.1 Singles Player in the UK. Rajiv was selected for the London 2012 Summer Olympics and, whilst playing very well and giving a good account of himself, sadly failed to progress beyond the group stages of the tournament. He won his first match and narrowly lost 21-19 in the third game of the next. It was a great experience for him and he will take a lot from it, but sadly it was not to be. Rio?

Milton Keynes resident, Greg Rutherford, has different memories of course, having secured the Gold Medal for Team GB in the mens long jump event. A fantastic result with his jump of 8.31m enough to win him the title of Olympic Champion. As we know, the Post Office have taken to painting a red letter box gold in the home towns of the GB winners, and to this end two(!) boxes are now displaying their new colours in the city centre. Many congratulations Greg!

September 2011

Now that the holiday season is over the phone calls and post to London House are back to their normal high levels following the usual August dip. A number of people have commented this year on how quiet August seemed to be. 

These are interesting times for the industry with a number of debtors making the most of the continued low Base Rate to make inroads into their debts. Indeed, a study on behalf of solicitors, Irwin Mitchell, of data from 12,500 households in mortgage arrears showed that more than half of those borrowers, who had received a home visit about their default, paid off some or all of their arrears during the second quarter of 2011.

The study also showed that the amount of these borrowers paying off their arrears had increased 7% compared to the same quarter in 2010. It had also shot up by 43% compared to two years ago.