Home owners in Caerphilly County Borough are at serious risk of having their property repossessed, research by charity Shelter Cymru suggests.
According to the homelessness charity, Caerphilly has a rate of 4.58 possession orders per 1,000 private homes – making it the fourth highest in Wales. Blaenau Gwent is top, followed by Merthyr Tydfil and then Rhondda Cynon Taf.
Shelter Cymru analysed Ministry of Justice statistics and Welsh Government data for 2010/11 to calculate the rate of claims leading to possession orders.
Last financial year there were 280 possession orders in Caerphilly County Borough.
John Puzey, director of Shelter Cymru, urged people struggling to pay their mortgage to get independent advice before it was too late.
He said: “Many thousands of people in Wales are struggling with a toxic combination of rising living costs, high inflation and stagnant wages. All it takes is one misfortune such as illness or redundancy for people to find themselves in serious financial difficulties and at risk of losing their home.
“The Welsh Government’s Mortgage Rescue Scheme was extremely effective and helped many hundreds of families to stay in their homes, but it was always known that funding was time limited. When it ended in April this year, it was made clear that local authorities had the discretion to use their Social Housing Grant to run their own schemes according to local need.
“It is encouraging to see mortgage rescue schemes operating in Neath Port Talbot and Caerphilly and we urge authorities and housing associations in other hotspot areas to seriously consider similar schemes as part of a range of spend-to-save options including independent housing advice, which has a proven track record for providing value for money.
“At this especially challenging time, every local authority and housing association should be placing a high priority on all forms of homelessness prevention, especially early advice and support to people in financial difficulties.”
Lindsey Kearton, Policy Manager at Consumer Focus Wales, said: “Access to timely, specialist debt advice is critical for people worried about their finances. Even if the situation hasn’t reached crisis point, being able to talk to an independent debt adviser can make a huge difference to how someone copes with and manages any financial difficulties.”
Rates of claims leading to possession orders by local authority in 2010/11, as compiled by Shelter Cymru.
|
Rank |
Local authority |
Number of possession orders |
Rate of possession orders per 1,000 private households |
|
1st |
Blaenau Gwent |
145 |
5.9 |
|
2nd |
Merthyr Tydfil |
105 |
5.26 |
|
3rd |
Rhondda Cynon Taff |
465 |
5.25 |
|
4th |
Caerphilly |
280 |
4.58 |
|
5th |
Neath Port Talbot |
220 |
4.29 |
|
6th |
Newport |
210 |
4.23 |
|
7th |
Flintshire |
220 |
4.06 |
|
8th |
Torfaen |
120 |
4.03 |
|
9th |
Bridgend |
190 |
3.76 |
|
10th |
Wrexham |
165 |
3.63 |
|
11th |
Carmarthenshire |
235 |
3.38 |
|
12th |
Swansea |
285 |
3.34 |
|
13th |
Conwy |
155 |
3.28 |
|
14th |
Cardiff |
365 |
3.13 |
|
15th |
Vale of Glamorgan |
145 |
3.03 |
|
16th |
Isle of Anglesey |
70 |
2.52 |
|
17th |
Denbighshire |
95 |
2.51 |
|
18th |
Monmouthshire |
85 |
2.5 |
|
19th |
Pembrokeshire |
105 |
2.15 |
|
20th |
Gwynedd |
100 |
2.02 |
|
21st |
Powys |
70 |
1.34 |
|
22nd |
Ceredigion |
30 |
0.95 |
| Wales total |
3,860 |
3.44 |
This is not really surprising, there is very little work available in this part of Wales. Much of the employment that does exist is either low paid, public sector or both. I have long predicted that when the cuts in public finance come through the pipeline things will get far worse.
There are a number of imaginative ways a local authority can assist people under threat of repossession of their homes, unfortunately, many of these measures are at the discretion of the Local council.
Many of the different aspects of repossession prevention, by the Local authority, requires the Council, in the case of the statistics of this article, Caerphilly County council, to have established systems and processes to `safety net`, in the short term, families who may find themselves in the unenviable position of loosing their homes.
It makes real common sense, for the Caerphilly council to have in place processes which can keep a family in their homes until such time that they can get their act in order and meet their own housing commitments again, it would maintain a child's uninterrupted education, it would enable adults in the households to either stay in work or to continue to look for work without the homeless threat hanging over the family. And of course it would prevent the Caerphilly Council from having to embark on the homelessness process in rehousing a displaced family if their homes were repossessed, saving considerable public funds and preventing a valuable Council home being unnecessarily blocked by an avoidable displaced family.
It would be interesting to learn what schemes, supported by Central Government and Wales Assembly finance grants, Caerphilly council have in place and which could push the borough to the bottom of these published tables in the future and prevent families in the borough finding themselves homeless. One final point, Will this situation get worse when people who occupy Social Housing in Wales realise they can once again buy their rented homes from Social Landlords under the right to buy scheme, including from Housing Associations.