Toughest time in three decades for property sellers

There is little doubt that the housing market is going through some real challenges in the UK at the moment. Homes are losing value hand over fist, with prices going down on a monthly basis, and mortgage lending has become extremely restricted, which means that refinancing on a home or getting a mortgage to purchase a property has become very difficult for some people and nigh on impossible for others. Read more

Tags: house prices, huge 84%, estate, Mortgage fraud, Mortgages, three decades, low house sales, Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors

Building society loses sensitive data

A building society has become the latest culprit of a string of data loss incidents, having lost sensitive data on around one thousand of its employees. The Leeds Building Society is said to have lost details that included the bank accounts numbers and salary details of around one thousand employees, and staff members affected have been warned to remain vigilant with regards to their accounts, and to keep an eye out for any suspicious activity. Read more

Tags: eye, blunders, close eye, floor, cheques

UK facing worst economic crisis in six decades

In a very stark and frank interview with a national newspaper Alistair Darling, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, has stated that the UK is facing its worst economic crisis in six decades. The chancellor insisted that he had to be straight with the public because it was his duty to do so, and he warned that the economic downturn was set to be far more damaging and long lasting than had originally been predicted – mirroring earlier opinions from a number of trade and industry groups. Read more

Tags: The chancellor, state, economy, food, earlier opinions, Chancellor level, crisis, Trotskyists

Sales figures for discount stores on the rise

Over recent years the nation’s major supermarket giants, Tesco, Asda, Sainsbury’s, and Morrisons, have monopolised the industry, with the smaller stores barely getting a look in. However, with the global credit crunch still biting and many households finding it harder and harder to make ends meet it looks as thought the smaller discount stores are now enjoying a taste of the big time, with sales figures for a number of discount stores having soared recently. Read more

Tags: Netto, Lidl, Aldi, discount stores, Iceland

Was the Bank of England right to keep interest rates on hold?

Following the five interest rate rises that took place between August 2006 and July 2007 the whole country seemed to breathe a sigh if relief when in December of last year the base rate was cut for the first time in two years. Another base rate cut quickly followed in February, and a further one in April. By this time many analysts and economists were wildly enthusing over how quickly and by how much interest rate were likely to come down, with some predicting that rates would fall to below 4% by the end of the year. Read more

Tags: British Chambers of Commerce, British Retail Consortium, CBI, interest rates, bank of england

Rise in the supply of rental properties coming onto market

Homeowners that have been keen to sell their homes before house prices plummet further have found themselves hitting a brick wall over recent months, as a number of factors have contributed to the housing market facing its worse slump in decades. Estate agents have reported very poor sales figures for properties, and many homeowners have found that they simply cannot sell their properties. Read more

Tags: first time buyers, uk, duty, Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors, demand, slump, purchase, rental property

House prices have plunged over last year

Over recent months homeowners and industry officials have seen one report after another that has shown how house prices are falling steadily on a month on month basis, and there has already been a significant fall in the value of homes compared to last year before the housing bubble burst. It has now been said that property prices have started falling at the fastest pace since the 1990s, and thousands of pounds have been wiped off the value of the average house price over the past year. Read more

Tags: house prices, October, Peak oil, increase, measures

OFT wants review of bank accounts market

The government watchdog, the Office of Fair Trading, has been calling for a review of the bank account system in the UK, claiming that consumers are often getting a raw deal because arrangement that are currently in existence when it comes to the eight billion pound bank account market were simply not adequate. The OFT went on to state that banks were not clear enough about the charges that were applied to customers’ accounts, which makes things confusing for accountholders. Read more

Tags: trading, uk, year, bank accounts, number, space, bank fees, rocket

Massive fine for insurance broker over cancelled policies

A well known insurance company has been accused of treating customers unfairly, and as a result has been fined £735,000 by the Financial Services Authority, the UK’s financial regulatory body. The insurance firm, Hastings Insurance Services Ltd, was found to have cancelled the policies of customers after finding that the cover had been sold to the customers too cheaply due to a computer error. Read more

Tags: insurance firm, Hastings Insurance Services Ltd, new car, Insurance, industry watchdog, error, finance, watchdog

Gas bills could rocket within the space of a year

A recent report claims that gas bills could rocket within the space of a year, with some households paying in excess of £1000 a year for their gas usage. The cost of gas usage went up earlier this year, along with electricity prices, and the energy firms are now in the process of raising prices or arrange price raises for later in the year, blaming a rise in the cist of wholesale energy prices for the increase in energy usage costs. Read more

Tags: increase, significant proportion, production costs, global contagion, household budget, energy, inflation, Readings

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