Firstrung: Northern Rock tops repossession league table

With 690 claims in the month of February alone the Northern Rock actions dwarf those of, for example, Nationwide and HBOS, who do not feature in the top twenty. This also represents an approximate 50% increase vis a vis feb 2007 when NR issued 458 possession claims. Even more worrying for UK mortgage lenders as a whole is that 17,565 possession actions were entered into court in the single month of February after a staggering 22,082 in January*. As a direct comparison, (vis a vis 2007), during the fourth quarter of 2007 a total of 35,662 mortgage possession claims were issued on a seasonally adjusted basis in that three month period. 46% of these mortgage possession orders were suspended.