If the Government?s aim in launching a ?280 million scheme at the beginning of this year to help struggling homeowners avoid repossession, was to bail out only six families, then they can with confidence call it a success. Everyone else though has seen the scheme as an expensive failure, a report from Telegraph.co.uk has revealed.
With repossession becoming a growing problem, the Mortgage Rescue Scheme was set up to tackle this and was supposed to be a solution, with families who qualified able to either secure an equity loan to reduce their mortgage or sell their property and remain as tenants under the plan.
The scheme has backfired though and is being criticised by politicians. Liberal Democrat Treasury spokesman, Vince Cable commented: ?The numbers of repossessions are likely to soar in the next two years because of rising unemployment. Temporary Government schemes are deferring the problem, not solving it.?
According to the Council of Mortgage Lenders, every week, almost 1,000 homeowners are being evicted. To add to those woes, the first three months of this year has seen repossessions reach to 12,800, which is a 50 per cent increase from the same time last year.
The Government had intended to reach 6,000 people with the Mortgage Rescue Scheme within two years. However, thanks to the slow start and dying support for the scheme, it now looks like reaching that target is impossible.
By the end of May of this year, repossessions proceedings were stopped for 200 households so that they can be assessed to gauge whether they qualify for the Mortgage Rescue Scheme.
