Repossessions and bankruptcies spiral

11:36am Thursday 7th February 2008

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MORE people are being crippled by debt in Weymouth and Portland.

A bleak picture involving spiralling debt, house repossessions and bankruptcies has been painted by workers at the borough's Citizens' Advice Bureau.

They expect debt advice requests to triple in 2008 compared with last year.

If trends continue based on the amount of people seeking help in January the bureau estimates it could be supporting a potential 5,000 clients with a total debt of more than £80 million.

A downturn in the economy, credit card usage and householders with bad credit ratings turning to small money lenders are among the reasons blamed for the surge.

The Weymouth and Portland Citizens' Advice Bureau is struggling for space at its Great George Street premises and fears it will not be able to meet this extra demand. More than half of its workload now involves debt cases.

Bureau deputy manager Helen Jones is concerned by the amount of people with debt problems seeking help.

She is seeking sponsorship to take the pressure off staff.

In the first two weeks of January this year one of the bureau's specialist debt advisers saw 16 clients with debt problems, dealt with four bankruptcy cases and three mortgage repossessions.

The same adviser had 79 clients for the whole of 2007, while the bureau dealt with a total of 44 bankruptcies.

"We expect a threefold demand on our services this year," Mrs Jones said. "It's scary to think the level of debt we are dealing with. There is a danger in making predictions but the fact is we have been inundated this year. We are also noticing more people becoming bankrupt as a way of alleviating the pressure. This is the only way forward for the majority of cases and some of those can't afford the bankruptcy fees."

Issues connected to sub-prime' mortgage lenders has exacerbated the debt problem.

Mrs Jones said: "Basically this is small lending companies which take on bad risks and tend to be more aggressive in that they take repossession action much more quickly."

She added: "The myth is that people who get into debt are not very sensible with money.

"But in the vast majority of cases it is because of a change of circumstances - someone being made redundant, falling ill or becoming disabled. What was a manageable debt can quickly spiral out of control.

"At this time of year we tend to notice more people in debt because they're spending more at Christmas and the credit card bills start landing on the mat. Now this is combined with an increasing amount of people being made redundant or having their hours reduced as the economy tightens up."

A lack of space and limited access to phone lines at the bureau is putting pressure on specialist debt advisers Helen Dyer and Andrea Hann. As well as putting in extra hours they are working a lot from home or at clients' houses, and using their own telephones to make calls.

Mrs Jones said the bureau was seeking a business or individual willing to sponsor a mobile phone contract for a year.

She said: "This would certainly make life a lot easier for us, especially at a time when we expect there to be a huge demand."