Sunday, Dec 14, 2008
Mortgage rescue scheme at work
Guardian: how a housing association stepped in to prevent a repossession
Arthur Stone is believed to be the first person in Britain to have been rescued by a housing association from having his home repossessed.
The 53 year old postman, who has mild mental retardation, bought his council house with a £17,000 mortgage and a £10,000 loan for renovations. But his debts have spiralled out of control, and he now owes GE Money £75,000, as well as £25,000 in unsecured debt.
Trent and Dove Housing Association has paid £76,000 for the property out of its own funds. They now rent it out to Arthur, for just £70 a week - a far cry from the £708 per month he had to pay his mortgage lender.
David Orr, chief executive of the National Housing Federation, says: 'The mortgage rescue scheme is a charter for saving thousands of households from the nightmare of repossession.'
16 Comments
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1. little professor said...
2. mytimeisnigh said...
People with mild or even borderline learnig disabilities having access to mortgages sounds like a recipe for disaster to me, uness they have a very supportive and clued up family network. I still find it hard to believe, that only twelve months ago, various agencies were holding seminars at learning disabilities teams in social services, encouraging social workers to organise mortgages for people with mild to severe learning disabilities to be paid for using their benefits. This practice was actively encouraged by social services, as it was considered to be empowering for the service users, who typically require 10 to 24 hours care or supervision per day. Just imagine if social workers had been drawn into this course of action, the housing market is crashing, benefits look invariably like they will need to be cut or frozen and at some point interest rates could rise to severn plus percent.
3. crashpad4me said...
@LP. Good post, and very informative.
There is an untold story here, namely how this debt came to be multiplied by a factor of nearly three. It would be interesting to know what the rate of interest was on the loan, and whether any and what steps were taken for relief through the courts. Hardly surprising the moneylender was prepared to support the rescue bid.
It's been mentioned here before, but this site is getting painfully slow to navigate. Wonder if we're being montored by GCHQ for signs of dissent...
4. tudorian said...
hope i can close the bold tag
5. montesquieu said...
GCHQ ... well at least someone in government may be listening !
6. drewster said...
crashpad,
Here's a message for anyone at GCHQ who is monitoring this website: get back to work, you'll be able to afford a house in Cheltenham in a couple of years. Now do your job and go find some terrorists.
Seriously. Why would any intelligence agency monitor this website? We're not terrorists, we're not even doing anything - just talking. If the website appears slow then change your internet service provider.
7. paul said...
Maybe the administrator of this site works for GCHQ.
Have you considered that, eh? And of course only someone who actually does work for GCHQ would deny it ...
8. crashpad4me said...
@Montesquieu - nice one! Mind you, from this government the phrase "We're listening" does start to sound like a threat.
@Paul - judging by postings 4 and 6, you may be right. Just watch out for mindlessly optimistic postings from usernames like "mandy", "badger" and "brownfinger"...
9. drewster said...
crashpad, you still haven't answered my question - why would the intelligence services be even remotely interested in this website, other than for personal interest?
paul - "of course only someone who actually does work for GCHQ would deny it". Brilliant. That's about as original an argument as "smelt it, dealt it".
10. crashpad4me said...
@drewster. When I commented at 8, tudorian's comment at 4 was blank, and yours at 6 just said "crashpad," there was no question. It looked like you'd both been censored, hence my comment. The situation is still the same on my screen. If you're able to see your number 6 in full I suggest you report this comment as it means there is something wrong with the site.
My reference to GCHQ was not entirely serious, but imo this government has a worrying and growing obsession with gathering information on people. There seem to be a lot of people on this site saving to buy a house, but not willing or able to do so yet. HMG are desperately keen for people to go out and spend, and I think they would be very interested in any detectable trends one way or the other - not to mention the overtly political content of some of the postings and comments.
11. paul said...
"My reference to GCHQ was not entirely serious"
Aha. Don't try and backpedal now. You even deny it yourself! I think we have our culprit - our mole working for the intelligence services.
I love baiting consipracists.
12. crashpad4me said...
Which itself is a conspiracy theory.
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