Mortgage arrears and possessions to rise to a record high

Thanks to sharply rising unemployment, we expect mortgage arrears to surpass the early 1990s highs. While Government pressure on lenders to be more lenient with struggling households and the introduction of several measures to help borrowers in arrears will limit the number of households who lose their homes, the severity of the economic downturn means that possessions will still match, or even exceed, their early 1990s peak of 75,500.