Healey slammed for repossession views
Opposition politicians have accused John Healey of losing touch with reality, after he suggested repossession could be the ‘best thing’ for struggling families.
The housing minister was speaking as evictions reached their highest level in 14 years, with 46,000 householders losing their home last year. In an interview on BBC Radio Five Live, he said: ‘In some cases it is the best thing for the people who are struggling with these mortgages.
‘Sometimes it is impossible for people to maintain the mortgage commitments they’ve got…it may be the best thing in those circumstances.’
Shadow housing minister Grant Shapps called on Mr Healey to apologise to families who had lost their home due to repossession, while Sarah Teather, the Liberal Democrats’ housing spokeswoman said: ‘If this is John Healey’s best response to record repossession figures then he should just shut up.’
But Mr Healey’s tone was unrepentant on Radio Four’s PM programme on Friday afternoon. He said: ‘Of course we try to avoid repossession in all possible cases but in some cases it is the only option and in some cases it is the best option to cut people’s losses so that they don’t get deeper into debt.
‘I am trying to tell it like it is to people. It is impossible for the government to help everyone, it is impossible for everyone to avoid the risk of repossession. It may be, in the end, for some, the only option.’
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Readers' comments (29)
Emma Bryn-Jones | 15/02/2010 9:00 am
Mr Healey's comments would not be so alarming if there were not such a paucity of social housing, if social housing were not lowest on the list for energy efficiency initiatives and repossessed households were not merely going back into housing stock they had lost as tenants. The cost of housing is the issue - salaries have not risen commensurate to this for decades and when only 10% of the population earns £44k or more how 1st time buyers can afford to enter the market is a mystery.
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karen | 15/02/2010 9:23 am
I really really hope he just made a really bad choice of words as this is a bloody ridiculous thing to say.
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Nick | 15/02/2010 10:00 am
It's no wonder we never get a straight answer from politicians. The minute one of them states a simple truth, they are vilified.
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worried well | 15/02/2010 10:02 am
Clearly he has never gone through the process himself. Whilst I can imagine that many families would want the pain to stop, the actual experience of losing their home would be devastating. I suspect what they would want would be help to stay in their home in an affordable way.
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Harry Lime | 15/02/2010 10:57 am
His comments would have made sense if there was some significant security of tenure in the private sector, but I thought what he said wasn't that outrageous, it's indicative of the fanatacism we place on home ownership. If you were a family that bought at the top of the bubble, paying £1k+ on a mortgage when you could privately rent for £600 then why struggle to put food on the table, put god knows how many stresses and strains on the family, when it's clear you can't sustain such a mortgage? It's the elephant in the room a lot of the time when people complain about the size of their mortgage. If you can't afford to live a reasonable lifestyle (not extravagant) and pay your mortgage, it would appear that your mortgage is too large.
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karen | 15/02/2010 11:21 am
Nick - did you find the process of losing your home a good thing?
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paul ex homeless persons officer | 15/02/2010 11:22 am
I have for once to agree with a politician regardless of their party John Healy
is correct I spent many years as a Homeless Persons Officer investigating
claims for Homelessness and where all income has been maximised and a family
are struggling to provide for itself then sometimes terminating the mortgage is the only option open to that family and such a decision by Homeless Persons Units is not at all uncommon.or it shoudnt be.
If the situation is not intentional then under the Statutory Act a local authority
would be open to redicule if they insisted a family try to sustain the impossible
and get deeper and deeper into the financial mire.
Of course i support the need for more social housing but we have to assist those who bought privately only to encounter hardship later on.through no fault of their own I was involved in homeless decisions during the recession of the early 1990s and so depressing did I find it that i took a decision to leave the Profession not every homeless applicant is a chancer.
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Sharon Howard | 15/02/2010 11:34 am
Again I think things are taken out of context to create sensationalism in reporting. Having worked in Homelessness for a number of years the one thing I have noticed in the past 5 years is the amount of people facing repossession within two years of obtianing their first mortgage. Anyone working in housing knows there is a bigger picture. Firstly, there is a serious lack in social housing (created as much by RTB as the restirctions on new build) and this means that priority households are being housed leaving those not meeting the critria with little option. Secondly, the shared ownership scheme has proved not to be sucessfull, as it is not making house buying more affordable in a number of cases. Thirdly, the rise of unscrupulous mortgage lenders has led to loans being given to people who could never afford them, thus resulting in rapid repossession with a few years of the being obtained. I could go on but to what avail? The government need to completely overhaul their policies on social housing, they also need to implement stricter fiancial control over mortgage lenders and the evidence required for obtaining a mortgage, especially as these loans are secured. Finally I would like to see some form of control over those that are profiting from the plight of others, e.g. the numerous companies that have set up in the past few years offering to buy properties and rent them back. I've yet to come across one (and I'm not including the RSLs invovled in mortgage rescue) that does what it says in the Ad.
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Jack Davies | 15/02/2010 12:05 pm
Im presuming the context of this regrettable comment is when home owners overstretch themselves, or make commitments they cannot possibly maintain whether out of hope or misplaced optimism as to the security of their jobs.
Yet there are other contexts that cannot be foreseen such as mid 80s when interest rates rose from about 9% (from memory) to over 16% and almost doubled morgage payments very quickly. So what is John Healeys view when government mismanage the economy? Or what is his view when the banks overtly target likely bad credit risks in sub-prime fiascos?
Undoubtedly there will always be people who do overstretch themselves out of naivety and so the comment can have some validity - yet when individuals do this they lose their homes and go bankrupt, when banks the supposedly financial experts do this they are bailed out with public money, and in that context his comments are rightly condemned
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Dave Hollins | 15/02/2010 12:06 pm
If this synthetic sqealing is the best the Tories can do then they have nothing to offer in housing policy. John Healey and margaret beckett have done more for home owners facing mortgage arrears than any previous housing ministers. That's why the Council of Mortgage Lenders' initial estimate of how many repossessions there would be has been virtually halved - due to the government's initiatives.
In the 1990s recession the Tories just let home owners drown in debt and were totally indifferent to their plight. Labour has done brilliantly well on this in the global credit crunch but gets no credit from the Tory media. Any objective adviser knows that for some people and in some circumstances it is unfortunately best for them to accept repossession than to fight on; that's all John Healey was saying and to advise such people to do something different would be criminal. Fortunately the government has paid for an army of advisers, including at courts, to make sure people get the best advice possible - something else that didn't happen under the Tories.
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