Northern Rock makes life even harder for struggling

Northern Rock is using aggressive debt recovery tactics which are putting at unnecessary risk the homes of people struggling to pay back loans, say debt advice experts. The bank is rushing to take court proceedings against defaulters and is unsympathetic when borrowers try to negotiate repayment deals to avoid their homes being repossessed.

The number of staff employed at Northern Rock to recover debt is set to almost double and the bank is taking up whole days in court to cope with the increased level of legal action. In Newcastle county court, at least a day a week is devoted to 30 or more Northern Rock charging order cases, as the bank seeks to convert risky unsecured loans into secured lending.

'Northern Rock has become harsher than the sub-prime lenders used to be,' says Chris Jary, director of Action for Debt, a debt advice service in Durham. 'Now, if you miss two mortgage repayments they take you straight to court. A couple of years ago they wouldn't have taken action for five or six months.'

Mark Norman, senior debt adviser with the Consumer Credit Counselling Service (CCCS), is especially worried about the growing tendency to place charging orders on the homes of borrowers who took out unsecured loans beyond their means. 'There's a charging order frenzy at the moment,' he says. 'And that's bad because once a charging order is in place, it's relatively easy for a lender to apply for an order for sale and for a borrower to then lose their home.'

Source: Observer

Does this not smell of double standards? This bank through gross imcompetence goes bust, the taxpayer bails it out to the tune of £25b and now it reposseses homes quicker than any other bank.

But here is the dilema, are they legally recovering our money from homeowners who default?