Home-repossessions

I received an email from my MP, HE actually invited me to a tea party. I have never voted for him so I suppose he is looking for some support in the future.

Along with the blurb, he sent me events and what he has been doing. What interested me was that he spoke in the house for 10 minutes on Mortgage repossessions.

http://www.andrewdismoremp.com:80/03..._repossessions

I thought it may be of some interest..........

xx

[natweststaffmember]

Re: Home-repossessions

link doesn't work for me at the moment, can you check the link?
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3/02/09
House of Commons Hansard

Mr Speaker, I beg leave to bring in a Bill, to amend the Law of Property 1925, to require a mortgagee to obtain the court’s permission before exercising its power of sale, where the mortgaged land consists of or includes a dwelling house; to make certain powers available to the court in actions by mortgagees for possession of a dwelling house; and for connected purposes.

This Bill is about a very important human right: the right not to be thrown out of your home without a court order.

A right which affects millions of people and is of even greater importance in times of economic downturn such as these.

But it is a right which we simply do not have in this country. A recent court judgment now allows unscrupulous lenders to sell people’s homes over their heads and without having first to go to court, where even just one single mortgage payment has been missed.
The number of home repossessions due to default on mortgage repayments has increased dramatically in recent months.

According to the Council for Mortgage Lenders, 45,000 homes were expected to have been repossessed by the end of 2008, and 75,000 in 2009. The number of people in mortgage arrears rose to 168,000. The Financial Services Authority and the Council for Mortgage Lenders report that more than 1,000,000 households are likely to default on a mortgage payment in the next year.

The Government has responded to the rising tide of home repossessions with admirable speed and decisiveness. The Prime Minister told the House on 22 October 2008, that new guidance has been given to county court judges, to ensure that repossession of people’s and families’ homes is only given as a matter of last resort.

And less than a month later, on 19 November 2008, a new pre-action protocol on seeking possession based on mortgage arrears came into force. Its purpose is to ensure that lenders and borrowers act fairly and reasonably with each other, to resolve any matter concerning mortgage arrears.
But in the meantime, in a case called Horsham Properties, at the beginning of October 2008, the High Court ruled that lenders – banks, building societies, investor companies – are entitled to sell properties, including people’s family homes, without having first to go to court for an order, following just a single default on a mortgage payment.

The purchaser of the property the new owner, very likely another faceless, compassionless investment company, is then entitled to a summary possession order against the borrower – the householder. The householder is now considered by the law to be a trespasser in his or her own home, which they no longer own.

There is no defence.

The new pre-action protocol is therefore easily circumvented by unscrupulous lenders, who invoke their power to sell the property in this way without first having to go to court.

Both the Financial Services Authority and the Council for Mortgage Lenders have reported that UK sub-prime lenders have been taking an increasingly aggressive approach to repossessions, and predict that this trend is only likely to increase as economic conditions worsen.
Hundreds of thousands of people and their families are therefore at serious risk of being thrown out of their homes, without first having any opportunity whatsoever, to put their point of view to a judge, to persuade the court that it is neither fair nor reasonable to evict them.

My Bill has the effect of reversing the High Court’s judgment. It requires that lenders – sub-prime or otherwise – first obtain the court’s permission, before they can call in their security, by selling a property which is somebody’s home.

It will ensure that the court which hears the lender’s application will have the power to delay the sale of the property, to give the borrower more time to repay, if that is appropriate in all the circumstances.

It does not guarantee that people can stay in their homes indefinitely if they cannot pay the mortgage.

But it does make sure that people have an opportunity to persuade an independent court that it is far too early, or disproportionate, to throw them into the street, bags, baggage, furniture and kids’ toys, at the whim of a hard bitten property company.
Whilst most people might have thought they had a right against this sort of thing happening, as a result of last October’s court case, they simply do not.

It is truly shocking that, in Britain in 2009, such a basic legal protection for home-owners is not already part of our law.

Especially when human rights law requires there to be such protection.

The European Court of Human Rights, for example, recently held in a case against the UK (McCann v UK) that the right to respect for one’s home, guaranteed by Article 8 of the ECHR, includes such protection. It said (at paras 50 and 55):

“The loss of one's home is a most extreme form of interference with the right to respect for the home. Any person at risk of an interference of this magnitude should in principle be able to have the proportionality of the measure determined by an independent tribunal in the light of the relevant principles under Article 8 of the Convention, notwithstanding that, under domestic law, his right of occupation has come to an end.
…
… the applicant was dispossessed of his home without any possibility to have the proportionality of the measure determined by an independent tribunal. It follows that, because of the lack of adequate procedural safeguards, there has been a violation of Article 8 of the Convention in the instant case.”
Article 11(1) of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights also protects the right to housing. The UN Committee on Economic and Social Rights has interpreted this in its General Comments to include a right to due process and appropriate procedural safeguards before being evicted from one’s home. (see e.g. General Comment on Forced Evictions, para. 15)

In our recent report on A Bill of Rights for the UK?, the Joint Committee on Human Rights, which I chair, recommended that one of the rights which should be protected in any UK Bill of Rights was the right to housing. We suggested in our “Draft Outline Bill of Rights”, the inclusion of provisions to the effect that “Everyone is entitled to be secure in the occupancy of their home” and “No one may be evicted from their home without an order of a court.”

These provisions were modelled on the right to housing in the International Covenant on Economic and Social Rights and on the equivalent provision in the South African Bill of Rights.

Not everyone agrees with the Joint Committee, that a Bill of Rights should include protection for such social and economic rights.

But if the UK had a Bill of Rights which included such provisions, our courts would not have been able to interpret the law in the way they have, in this appalling case, so as to allow lenders to cash in on their security by selling people’s homes, without first having to obtain a court’s approval, that such a drastic step is proportionate in the circumstances.
Until we have such a Bill of Rights, there is absolutely nothing to stop our courts from giving the maximum, highest priority to the rights of the banks over the right of ordinary people, to a fair hearing before losing their home.

This example of home repossession provides a good practical example of how a Bill of Rights which protected social and economic rights such as the right to housing, (including the right to minimum procedural safeguards before being evicted from one’s home) can help hundreds of thousands of ordinary people against more powerful interests in times of economic hardship.

It show how human rights are, and should be, universal. They are not a “villains’ charter”. They are for the middle class home owner struggling with the mortgage just as much as they are for the council or private tenant with rent arrears; when each falls on hard times. No one should lose their home without good reason, without proper and fair justification and without an impartial court hearing.

This problem is immediate and it is urgent.

In the absence of such protection in a Bill of Rights, there is no alternative but to try to change the law by this Bill.

[Guest]

Re: Home-repossessions

I received an email from my MP, HE actually invited me to a tea party. I have never voted for him so I suppose he is looking for some support in the future.

Along with the blurb, he sent me events and what he has been doing. What interested me was that he spoke in the house for 10 minutes on Mortgage repossessions.

http://www.andrewdismoremp.com:80/03..._repossessions

I thought it may be of some interest..........

xx

He's going to need it - given that his boss is busy making all of them as unelectable as possible and may indeed be responsible for the election of the Liberal Democrats as Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition.

If he has any sense, he'll defect, not that anyone else would want him.