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Debt Facts

The UK economy has been a huge success story for over a decade, with soaring house prices, share prices, employment figures and salary rises during an unprecedented period of economic success.

However, those days now seem a long, long time ago...

UK consumers are currently massively indebted, with record levels of personal debt and borrowing.

House repossessions and mortgage defaults are on the increase, while increasing numbers of consumers are being exposed to the nightmare of debt collectors, bailiffs and County Court Judgements.

An out-of-control bonus/reward culture has helped create financial greed on a level never seen before, with banks and lenders falling over themselves to offer as much credit as possible to as many people as possible, including record numbers of sub-prime customers. A massive percentage of consumer debt is a direct result of irresponsible lending by lenders.

The UK is the now the most indebted nation on the planet per head of population, and it's getting worse every day.

This page contains some of the latest financial facts to be published, and will hopefully provide you with the perfect incentive to take ACTION on your debts.

Desparate times call for desparate measures, so now is the time to consider more radical debt solutions.

• Don't keep moving your money around to find low interest deals
• Don't sign up for MORE debt to consolidate or reschedule your current debts
• Don't keep using credit cards and loans to make your mortgage repayments
• Don't put up with the living hell of aggressive debt collectors and bailiffs
• Don't risk losing your home, your marriage or your sanity

We can help you to escape from the debt trap by examining the legal enforcability of your credit cards, loans and HP agreements.

If your lenders have made mistakes with your credit agreement, then our legal team can prove that those agreements are legally unenforceable.

If your agreements are legally unenforceable then we can help you to STOP MAKING REPAYMENTS, and to WIPE OUT THE BALANCE OWED ON THAT DEBT, FOREVER!

We can also REMOVE NEGATIVE MARKS for these debts from your credit file, because it is illegal for lenders to post adverse marks against a legally unenforceable debt!

REQUEST A FREE NO OBLIGATION CALL-BACK to find out more about how we can help you change your life TODAY!

Read on, if you dare...

• Over 3.7 million people are failing to cope with mounting credit card bills and 1.02 million people have borrowed too much money and can’t keep up with mortgage repayments, according to research published by AXA. In all around 11.6 million (25% of adults) are said to be struggling financially with over half saying they have no savings left at all.
  
  
• More than one in ten (11%) cash-strapped borrowers have missed payments on their mortgage, credit card, or personal loan in the last six months, according to MoneyExpert.com. They estimate at least five million finance related bills have been missed with credit cards proving the greatest burden. Around 4m credit card customers have admitted missing a payment in the six months to September. The number of people missing payments on personal loans has increased considerably relative to the previous six month period. In the six months to September 1.3 million people missed a loan repayment, compared to 859,000 in the six months to January.
  
  
• Grant Shapps, the Shadow Housing Minister, has released a report which finds that 44% of mortgage holders are worried about being able to meet their mortgage payments in 2009 and 47% of local authority and housing association tenants are worried about being able to meet their rent payments. In addition, 41% of private renters fear that they won’t be able to pay the rent over the next 12 months.
  
  
• The Insolvency Service said there were 27,087 individual insolvencies in England and Wales (298 people a day or 1 every 4.8 minutes) in the third quarter of 2008 on a seasonally adjusted basis. This was an increase of 8.8% on the previous quarter and an increase of 4.6% on the same period a year ago.
  
  
• KPMG predicts 110,000 personal insolvencies by the end of 2008 and 150,000 personal insolvencies in 2009 (which would be equivalent to 411 people a day or 1 person becoming bankrupt or entering into an Individual Voluntary Arrangement (IVA) every 3.5 minutes).
  
  
• Research from Mintel shows that over 5 million adults have already been 'Hard Hit' by the economic downturn and are seriously struggling to make ends meet. This equates to no less than one in every ten British adults (11%). And according to the research, things are only set to get worse, with a further 16% 'Fearing for the future' because they are worried about their long term financial security.
  
  
• Calls to the National Debtline, have increased by 40% since 2007, and demand for Business Debtline, the service specifically for business, has doubled comparing autumn 2008 with autumn 2007.
  
  
• Consumer county court judgments in England and Wales rose by 17.4 percent year-on-year in Q3 2008 to 223,519, their highest level since Q1 2007. This is equivalent to 2,430 every day.
  
  
• Nearly one in three (30%) UK adults are concerned about their ability to manage their personal debt as the onset of recession piles on the financial pressure, according to research from MoneyExpert.com and 27% of those owing money have gone further into the red in the last three months.
  
  
• According to research from CreditExpert.co.uk, 36 million (75 per cent) UK adults have put or are planning to put on hold key life plans for 2009, such as moving jobs and having a baby. Furthermore, over half (55 per cent) of all adults are feeling anxious about reaching their goals in life, mainly due to concerns over affordability.
  
  
• The number of people who have failed to pay their gas and electricity bills has soared, according to MoneyExpert.com. The amount of electricity bills that have gone unpaid in the past six months has jumped from 1.31 million to 1.96 million and approximately 1.61 million Brits missed a gas bill compared to 1.16 million in the final six months of 2007. The research shows around 12 per cent of adults – around 5.37 million people - have missed a household bill of some sort in the past six months including everything from gas and electricity to council tax, fixed and mobile phones and private or council rent.
  
  
• In 2007/8 the Citizens Advice service saw 1.9 million clients with 5.54 million issues, of which 1.7 million issues related to debt (31.3% of all enquiries). Debt is the number one issue advised on in bureaux and equates to 4,760 new debt problems every day of the year. The most recent figures for July to September 2008 (Q2 2008/9) show a 51% increase in new mortgage and secured loan enquiries and a 10% increase in fuel debts compared to the same period last year (Q2 2007/8).
  
  
• The number of people suffering from serious debt problems is much higher than official figures suggest, a survey by R3 has found. 600,000 UK residents say they are currently repaying debts under a Debt Management Plan (DMP). A DMP is an unofficial, but formalised agreement between an individual who is in financial strife and their creditors which does not show up in the government’s official quarterly insolvency statistics.
  
  
• The FSA estimate that the total number of secured loans on people’s homes in arrears at the end of Q3 was 340,000 giving an increase of 30,000 or 10% since Q2, and representing a rise of 24% on a year earlier. By the end of 2009 the Council of Mortgage Lenders expects 500,000 households to be more than three months in arrears.
  
  
• The number of people who spend more than they earn each month has risen to nearly 5.3 million according to Legal and General.
  
  
• Total credit card debt in December 2008 was £52.8bn. The UK collective credit limit on credit cards is £158bn, which is an average credit card limit of £5,129 per person.
  
  
• According to uSwitch 7.3 million consumers use their credit card to make cash withdrawals – collectively, they take out £3.7 billion each year. They estimate that over one million people are using this money to pay their mortgage, loans and household bills and over 700,000 are withdrawing cash from one credit card to pay off another. uSwitch estimate the average APR for cash withdrawals is 29.97%.
  
  
• There were 181m plastic cards in circulation in the UK at the end of 2007 according to APACS. 145m of these were debit, credit or charge cards. This works out at just under 4 plastic cards for every adult in the UK.
  
  
• There are more credit cards in the UK than people according to APACS. At the end of 2007 there were 73m credit and charge cards in the UK compared with around 60 million people in the country.
  
  
• Research by Reform and Chartered Insurance Institute reveals that 50% of the 18 – 34-year olds surveyed had debts (excluding mortgages ) up to £10,000 and 20% had debts (excluding mortgages) greater than £10,000. Nearly a third of under 30’s Britain’s, have no savings at all.
  
  
• The annual survey by Push, the UK’s leading independent resource for prospective students, has found that student debt now tops £4,500 for each year of study – a hike of 9.6% since last year. Students who started at university last year can expect to owe over £17,500 by the time they leave and new students should reckon on nearly £4,000 more than that. The national average projected debt on graduation now stands at £14,161.
  
  
• Life Trust Insurance research has found of those aged 45 to 54, nearly a third expected to be forced to delay retirement with just under a fifth (19%) planning to extend their working lives by five years of more. For the over 55s a staggering 41% said they would be delaying retirement with 15% expecting this to be for five years or more.
  
  
• Research from Lincoln Financial Group reveals that 41% of Brits are resigning themselves to the fact that they will have to work either full or part time during their retirement to fund and maintain the lifestyle they want. Lincoln’s research also reveals that 11% people are convinced they will not have enough money to last them to the age of 70, let alone longer.
  
  
• Some 1.5 million pension holders are teetering on the brink of halting their pension contributions in an effort to stave off the effects of the impending recession. The AXA figures suggest that one in twelve pension holders feel they will be left with little choice but to take a pension holiday in the next two years.
  
  
• Independent research conducted by Prudential reveals that almost one in five (18 per cent) of UK workers say they have reduced the amount they save for an occupational or private pension as a result of the credit crunch. In addition, more than half of all UK workers (55 per cent) do not contribute to a company or private pension, leaving them completely reliant on the State pension or other savings.
  
  
• For the first time ever, there are more people of state pensionable age than under-16s.
  
  
• Nearly a third of adults would face financial disaster within two months if they lost their jobs, according to research for MoneyExpert.com. Half of them (15%) believe they would only last a month.
  
  
• The number of people who are regularly saving money each month has fallen to below half of the population (47%). The monthly amount Britons are setting aside as a percentage of income has fallen every autumn since 2005.