Wendy calls for Action on Reposessions

New Bill late and not yet “fit for purpose”

Official figures show that 33 people a day are facing repossession. In response to the campaigning efforts and calls for action by Opposition MSPs including Wendy Alexander and Hugh Henry and organisations like the Renfrewshire Law Centre the Scottish Government finally brought forward a bill for debate on the last day before the Scottish parliament broke up for the Christmas break. However it has come up with an overly-complex piece of legislation. Crucially the new law does not yet extend protection to tenants who are being evicted due to arrears of their landlord

Wendy said:

“Homeowners under threat of repossession simply can’t wait any longer. Christmas is a good time to act quickly to protect families facing homelessness.

For almost a year I have been calling for promptaction to help those who were at risk of repossession of their home due to mortgage arrears. Owners in England and Wales already have pre-court protocol meaning that, before a lender can get a Court Order to repossess a home, they have to show to the Court that they had explored every avenue with the borrower.

The Scottish Government is making a big thing about it having legislative backing even though it would be very easy to set up pre-court protocols without legislation as has been done in England.

The Scottish Government also tagged onto the Bill Part 2 concerning bankruptcy and other justice matters. This has unnecessarily complicated the Bill and what could have been a consensual piece of legislation will now be delayed even further.

My top priority is to see the bill amended to deal with tenants – like Margaret Dragsnes, 34, who faced eviction because her landlord had not paid his mortgage. The fact we have a bill reflects in part the campaigning efforts of Renfrewshire’s Law Centre has lobbied long and hard for early action to protect families facing repossessions.”

Jon Kiddie chief executive of the Law Centre said: 

“At present, these mortgage repossession cases, unlike landlord/tenant eviction cases, do not require to call in court as a matter of routine, and mortgage debtors often turn to their lenders as their first port of call for advice, i.e. the very institutions that have raised court action against them for eviction. Very often their lenders simply “advise” them to ignore the court papers, then they apply for a court order by default. The Law Centre frequently encounters families arriving on our doorstep facing eviction within days if not hours – in many cases they have relied on this kind of “advice” from banks. The proposed amendment to require cases to call in court should help put a stop to this kind of summary (in)justice, since it will shift control of cases away from the banks and towards the courts, and encourage debtors to engage with independent advisors, like law centres, who will give them proper advice. At present not nearly enough debtors are getting independent advice. Only a fraction of mortgage repossession cases proceed to a debtor application for time to pay because most people don’t know and aren’t made aware of this option. This contrasts starkly with the landlord/tenant eviction cases, which DO require to call in court, and in the vast majority of these cases a court order is avoided. Statistics show that debtors who receive professional representation are much more likely to keep their own home.”