Debt Advice Weekly Round-Up

18/12/2009

Well, another eventful week for British households this time around. Here's a round-up of the big stories we've been talking about over the last five days.

First off, we had the news that current arrangements for Local Housing Allowance are leaving tenants at risk of losing their homes.

Housing charity Shelter warned that 59 per cent of claimants were having to make up shortfalls in their rent – with many missing out on heating or food to meet the payments.

The charity also joined forces with Advice UK and Citizens Advice this week to warn that lenders are repossessing homes too quickly.
A report from the three groups found that, in a third of cases, lenders had failed to take all the action required of them by official protocol before sending the bailiffs in.

More bad news for debt sufferers came when figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) revealed a sharp rise in inflation during November.

The Consumer Price Index (CPI) rose to 1.9 per cent in the month, while economists warned that the figure could rise to as high as three per cent.

The death knell was rung for the cheque book on Thursday, with the Payments Council announcing that the method would be wiped out for good in October 2018.

The news was met with dismay from elderly campaign groups, who feel that older people will struggle to adapt to more modern payment types.

Debt management firm EuroDebt also expressed concern that the move would make things more difficult for people who rely on flexible payment to repay their debts.

That brings us up to the end of the week, when the Bank of England's biannual Financial Stability Report was published. It warned that a rise in interest rates would likely be matched with an increase in household debt problems'>debt problems.

The Bank's research found that the ratio of income paid on interest would be three quarters higher if the base rate stood at its October 2008 level of five per cent.

That’s everything for this week, thanks for watching and have a very merry Christmas.

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