Home owners with £30,000 credit card debts face 'losing their homes'
More than one hundred thousand home owners face losing their homes because of £30,000 worth of credit card and other debts excluding their mortgage, charities warned today.
Industry figures suggest the number of repossessions this year will be 40,000, but charities predict that numbers will reach more than double that amount once interest rates begin to kick in.
Debt charity Consumer Credit Counselling Service said it was contacted by 90,000 struggling home owners last year, each with an average debt of £30,160 on credit cards and personal loans.
It said this figure would break through the 100,000 mark this year as their repayments increase on the back of interest rate rises.
Middle income households are particularly vulnerable, according to separate research released earlier this week, as they would be unable to survive for six months if they lost their main source of income.
Delroy Corinaldi, a director at the CCCS, said: “So many households are just managing to make ends meet, that even a small increase in the cost of their mortgage may push them over the edge. As far as possible, families need to think how they could pay such increases and seek help at the earliest opportunity if they feel that they cannot cope.”
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