Scheme aims to avoid repossessions
A new scheme to help people with their mortgages has been designed to avoid repossessions that were seen in the 1990s, the Prime Minister said.
The plan to help recession-hit families avoid having their homes repossessed comes into force on the eve of the Budget.
Some hard-pressed home owners will be able to reduce monthly mortgage payments for up to two years after lenders representing what officials said was more than 80% of the market agreed to offer support.
Gordon Brown told high-ranking representatives of advice and consumer organisations at a meeting at Downing Street: "We want to help people through this downturn. People's homes are so important to them, and rightly so.
"We don't want to return to the days of the 1990s, when there were repossessions."
Details of the institutions signed up - not all of whom had taken up the Government guarantee to cover defaults on deferred payments - will be announced to MPs by Housing Minister Margaret Beckett later.
The Homeowners Mortgage Support (HMS) scheme is designed to offer "breathing space" for struggling households.
Any reduction will have to be made up once the period is over. It is unclear how many lenders offering help are doing so as part of the Government scheme - with a guarantee backed by the taxpayer - and how many are offering "comparable arrangements".
Mr Brown told representatives of organisations such as Shelter, Citizens Advice Bureau and Which? that some building societies had joined the scheme who they might not have expected to do so.
He said that measures which had already been taken, including help for people with their mortgages if they were unemployed, were helpful.
