Wherever You Go

We were asked by one of our overseas clients to visit a debtor to interview them about their finances and to get a closer feel for their asset base. The subjects owed a large amount of money to a financier abroad and our client wanted the debt transferred and registered in the UK to allow them to obtain judgment and proceed with enforcement.

When they had originally borrowed the money they provided a schedule of their assets both in New Zealand (where they resided at the time) and in the UK. When the borrowing went into default they fled back to the UK. We tracked them down and met with them. Whilst not particularly pleased to see us they saw the error of their ways and co-operated with us. We were able to establish that they did indeed have a good asset base and were also in full time, well paid, employment. The liabilities they had were comfortably manageable.

Armed with this information, our client began enforcement procedures and ultimately a repayment programme agreed via the sale of property assets.

You asked us

"The latest UK Debt figures have been released this month. They don't make for pleasant reading. Any thoughts?"

The figures do indeed give reason for concern with a number of startling statistics. There is obviously nothing we at London House can do to influence them, but the information can help when it comes to considering the way ahead. The industry can use them when lobbying or for just raising awareness. I am a firm believer that personal finance should be taught at school, in depth, and the younger generations made aware of the consequences of poor financial control. Alas, the current parlous financial state of many individuals means that there will always be plenty of work for London House and its clients.

If you have not seen the figures, here are some highlights:

Total UK personal debt at the end of July 2011 stood at £1,451bn. Individuals currently owe nearly as much as the entire country produced between Q2 2010 and Q1 2011.

UK banks and building societies wrote off £8.0bn of loans to individuals in the 4 quarters to end Q2 2011. In Q2 2011 they wrote off £2.06bn (£1.15bn of that was credit card debt). This amounts to a write-off of £22.54m a day.

Average household debt in the UK is ~ £8,055 (excluding mortgages). This figure increases to £15,491 if the average is based on the number of households who actually have some form of unsecured loan.

Average household debt in the UK is ~ £55,814 (including mortgages).

Today in the UK

• 334 people every day of the year will be declared insolvent or bankrupt. This is equivalent to 1 person every 59 seconds during a working day.  
• 1,391 Consumer County Court Judgments (CCJs) were issued every day during Q2 2011 and the average judgment amount was £3,345.
• Citizen Advice Bureaux dealt with 9,072 new debt problems every working day in England and Wales during the year ending March 2011.
• The average cost of raising a child from birth to the age of 21 is £27.50 a day.
• 99 properties were repossessed every day during Q2 2011.
• 112 new people became unemployed for more than 12 months every day during the 12 months to end June 2011.
• 1,688 people reported they had become redundant every day during 3 months to end June 2011

197 mortgage possession claims will be issued and 154 mortgage possession orders will be made today.