Eight Million Owe More Than £10,000

[Realistbear]

http://money.guardian.co.uk/news_/story/0,,1764750,00.html

Eight million owe more than £10,000

Almost a fifth of British adults have high levels of unsecured debt, reports Lisa Bachelor

Sunday April 30, 2006

The Observer

Andrew Marshall earns just £1,600 a month from his job as a marketing analyst with a charity, yet he was able to borrow £75,000 in unsecured loans from three high street lenders. Now he finds himself with repayments that leave him with a monthly deficit of more than £2,000 a month.

The situation in which Andrew (not his real name) finds himself may be extreme, but he is not alone. Nineteen per cent of the adult population - about eight million people - now have unsecured debts of at least £10,000, according to a study conducted by YouGov on behalf of debt consultants Thomas Charles.

The "Miracle Economy" in action.

[Guest]

Ten thousand pounds is a lot of money if you're not living with mum and dad and saving a grand a month.

[BufferBear Bitcoin Bull]

'I joined a property consortium and borrowed the money to invest in two off-plan properties,' explains Andrew, 36, who borrowed £25,000 from each lender - repayable over seven - to 10-year periods - after trying about 15 different lenders, two of whom rejected him.

'However, the project ran into numerous problems,' he adds. 'The survey they did was wrong, some of the information I bought on the basis of was inaccurate, and the building wasn't completed when they said it would be. This has left me with huge amounts to pay off - my overall debt is about £120,000 now and I'm waiting for one of the properties to be repossessed before I can tackle this.'

But you can't lose out buying property.....

[trompe le monde]

http://money.guardian.co.uk/news_/story/0,,1764750,00.html

Eight million owe more than £10,000

Almost a fifth of British adults have high levels of unsecured debt, reports Lisa Bachelor

Sunday April 30, 2006

The Observer

Andrew Marshall earns just £1,600 a month from his job as a marketing analyst with a charity, yet he was able to borrow £75,000 in unsecured loans from three high street lenders. Now he finds himself with repayments that leave him with a monthly deficit of more than £2,000 a month.

The situation in which Andrew (not his real name) finds himself may be extreme, but he is not alone. Nineteen per cent of the adult population - about eight million people - now have unsecured debts of at least £10,000, according to a study conducted by YouGov on behalf of debt consultants Thomas Charles.

The "Miracle Economy" in action.

In the Indie tomorrow:

http://money.independent.co.uk/personal_fi...ticle360802.ece

First-timers are deep in debt even before they buy a home

By Matthew Aplin

Published: 29 April 2006

Nearly half of first-time buyers owe at least £8,000 by the time they start looking for a property, according to a new report from one of the UK's biggest mortgage lenders published today....

Still, I guess once you've taken your first hit and it hasn't killled you, you just carry on taking on bigger ones. At some point, there's going to be a lot of debt junkies OD'd in the gutter.

TLM

[BuyingBear]

This is so much worse than Keynesianism of old because the debt burden falls upon the individual not the state, I suppose that's why they've pushed one-stop bankruptcy, it's a way of distributing the burden on the collective whole.

[ciderpunk]

http://money.guardian.co.uk/news_/story/0,,1764750,00.html

Eight million owe more than £10,000

Almost a fifth of British adults have high levels of unsecured debt, reports Lisa Bachelor

Sunday April 30, 2006

The Observer

Compare and contrast this GfK-NOP poll from Feb/March;

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4914830.stm

It might be worth mentioning in passing that the concept of unsecured loans is often misunderstood by the general public (not HPCers of course). While a loan may not be secured against any particular asset from the outset, this does not prevent lenders from using the courts to force the sale of any assets should the borrower default.

[nimmmm]

The more they borrow, the more likely they are to pay the price:

Bankruptcies to soar even higher

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtm.../ixcitytop.html

[Spring Bounce?????]

Funny enough they were boasting about this in another forum.

Most of the people who owed more than £10k were talking of borrowing more and more and "live it up" then declare bankrupt when it's over £30k.

Sounded very irresponsible.

Edited April 30, 2006 by Spring Bounce?????

[Realistbear]

The more they borrow, the more likely they are to pay the price:

Bankruptcies to soar even higher

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtm.../ixcitytop.html

Yes, the momentum toward a major crash does seem to be different this time in comparison to the build up toward the Great Crash: the speed at which it is taking on the characteristic shape of a pear.

Bankruptcy experts expect the Government will on Friday reveal that 23,000 people became insolvent in the first three months of this year, 2,500 more than in the previous three months and the highest number in any quarter since records began in 1987.

"The situation is deteriorating rapidly,

far faster than we expected

," said Vicky Redwood, of Capital Economics, the City consultancy

.

The next HPC may happen very quickly and be far more vicious than the last 3 crashes which took several years to reach bottom.

[North London Rent Girl]

Compare and contrast this GfK-NOP poll from Feb/March;

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4914830.stm

It might be worth mentioning in passing that the concept of unsecured loans is often misunderstood by the general public (not HPCers of course). While a loan may not be secured against any particular asset from the outset, this does not prevent lenders from using the courts to force the sale of any assets should the borrower default.

My understanding is that courts are loathe to award against a debtor with unsecured debts unless they've been really reckless/deceitful in obtaining funds because the principle is that the higher interest rates on unsecured debt are justified by the lender's increased risk. No? Courts really don't often find in favour of credit card companies, for example.

[simon99]

Is the level of debt even a problem anymore when you can just get the debts wiped out? Im beginning to think im the mug for saving, rather than borrowing a load on credit.

[Guest Charlie The Tramp]

If you look at the daily list of petitions you will notice many adjourned petitions. These would be cases of the circumstances of the petitioner being more closely investigated.

Petition List

More and more of these petitions are being adjourned whereas it appears that the Receiver is trying to get these petitioners to go for a IVA or in the case of the totally irresponsible the following may apply. Maybe due to the massive increase in personal bankruptcies the time has come to put an end to the p$ss takers.

If, during his/her enquiries into your affairs, the Official Receiver decides that you have been

dishonest either before or during the bankruptcy or that you are otherwise to blame for your

position, he/she may apply to the court for a bankruptcy restrictions order. The court may make

an order against you for between 2 and 15 years and this order will mean that you continue to be

subject to the restrictions of bankruptcy which are described in section 8 above. You may give a

bankruptcy restrictions undertaking which will have the same effect as an order, but will mean

that the matter does not go to court.