Government Efforts To Stop Repossession Are Not Working

 The mortgage rescue scheme aimed at bailing out vulnerable families who faced the danger of repossession, which would enable them to stay in their homes, was implemented across England in January this year. The scheme costing 285 million pounds was introduced by the government in order to ensure that repossession was the last refuge in case of home owners.

Under this scheme, families consisting of senior members, disabled persons and small children, with an earning of less than 60,000 pounds per annum would be rescued from repossession. This scheme would help them a portion of their home, which would reduce their mortgage payment considerably, or sell the whole house and stay on in he property as tenants by paying a subsidized rent.

According to Ian Austin, a junior communities minister, only six families had been rescued until now, which originally aimed at helping 6,000 families who faced the threat of repossession, in the span of next two years.

According to Vincent Cable, The Liberal Democrats’ Treasury spokesperson, the scheme was supposed to help people stay on in their homes as tenants had not succeeded to the extent it was expected to. He attributed this trend to the various conditions that had to be adhered to as well as the unduly long time taken to evaluate the eligibility of home owners to be eligible under the scheme. But the redeeming aspect was 200 households had profited from the advice to stop repossession and another 295 were in the evaluation level.

Another survey observed that there could be 100,000 cases of repossessions every year by 2011. This problem is only next to the problem of unemployment facing the country. According to Liberals, the government needs to relook into this scheme to prevent people from losing their homes permanently on account of panic selling by them to such companies who take advantage of the situation.