Earlier this month the Council of Mortgage Lenders revealed its quarter three arrears and possession figures. The number of buy-to-let mortgages more than three months in arrears declined from 28,300 (1.57% of the total) to 26,300 (1.45%).
Adding in the numbers of arrears that flow from both receivers (0.47%) and all repossessions (0.22%), gives the overall industry average as 2.14%
In comparison, CHL’s figures for quarter three show three-month arrear levels at 0.46%, receivers at 0.97% and all repossessions at 0.28%, giving an overall figure of 1.71%.
This is a 43bps differential between CHL and the CML industry average figures. While there has been a slight narrowing between the CHL and the CML – down from 53bps – CHL still believe this shows the ongoing strength of its in-house collections strategy and processes, plus its asset management programme and the emphasis on embedded TCF.
CHL put the narrowing of the gap primarily down to the strong new business growth in the buy-to-let sector during quarter three.
Bob Young, Managing Director at CHL Mortgages, commented:
“As always we like to show the market how our buy-to-let mortgage book is performing in comparison to the industry averages recently announced by the CML.
"Once again we are able to show our arrears levels out-performing the national figure and, while the gap has narrowed slightly, this is still a significant 43bps difference. We are particularly proud of our work in this area especially as we continue to manage a book with over 44,000 live mortgage accounts.
"Our emphasis will remain on delivering the human touch to our borrowers and working with them through any potential and/or ongoing payment difficulties they may have.
"We have also benefited greatly from having this expertise in-house and the processes and strategies we put in place a few years ago have continued to work well.
"Our work in this area will continue and we believe that 2011 will close with our arrears levels at an even lower percentage – our end of October figure was 1.7% – a fitting end to the year particularly for the hard-working and dedicated teams who work on these accounts.”
