Home repossessions up by two-thirds

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A total of 46,750 properties were repossessed by lenders during the year, up from 27,900 in 2007, City watchdog the Financial Services Authority said.

There was also a steep jump in the number of people who fell behind with their mortgage repayments during the final quarter of the year.

Around 68,000 people got into arrears during the period, a 13% jump compared with the previous quarter, which had seen a 10% rise.

The FSA said borrowers were increasingly struggling to clear their arrears, and this led to the total number of people who were behind with repayments steadily increasing since early 2007.

At the end of last year, 377,000 homeowners were in arrears, 10% more than in the third quarter and 31% higher than at the end of 2007.

The number of mortgages that were in arrears as a proportion of all loans also increased significantly during the year to 3.37%, up from 2.26% 12 months earlier.

The FSA's figures for repossessions are considerably higher then those reported by the Council of Mortgage Lenders, which said 40,000 people lost their homes during 2008, the highest level since 1996.

The difference is because the FSA covers all regulated lenders, whereas the CML includes only its members. The FSA also includes both first and second charge mortgages, while the CML looks only at first charge loans.

But the FSA figures did show a slight fall in the number of homes that were repossessed during the final quarter of 2008, with 13,028 properties taken over by lenders during the period. This was 436 fewer than during the previous three months, although the figure was still 60% higher than a year earlier.