Home Repossession Cases Dropping
April 2017


TheScottish Government have recently reported that the number of home repossession cases going through the courts has fallen more than 40% in a year. With 1,874 repossession court cases initiated in 2015/16 it shows a drop of 43% compared to the previous year and 82% fewer than 2008/09.

Annabelle Ewing, the Minister for community safety and legal affairs, said: “I am pleased there has been such a dramatic fall in the number of people seeing their homes being repossessed, which continues a longer term downward trend. This is thanks largely to historically low interest rates and is a positive indicator of Scotland’s general economic picture. The overall number of civil cases, which includes debt, damages and personal injury has fallen by over 40% in just seven years which is very encouraging. The past year has seen significant changes in the way our civil courts work, streamlining the system and helping people access civil justice more quickly and efficiently.”

On the subject of debt recovery actions or actions for payments of money, the report confirms the longer term downward trend showing a drop of 50% over the last 10 years. Explanation offered is the increase alternative recovery methods being used. There are a full range of pre-court recovery methods available from debt recovery firms such as ourselves, including:

  • Dispute resolution
  • Increased channels of communication including the traditional telephone and correspondence methods plus email, text, live chat, web contact and customer web access
  • Extended and more user friendly methods of payment.
  • Setting up affordable payment arrangements to gather debt as soon as practicable
  • Tracing to access absconded debtors and contact them to offer a wide range of payment options

Despite the rise in alternative recovery methods it is clear within this report that court action is still required as an effective recovery method in the last resort. This is illustrated in the figures of cases going through the Sheriff court levelling out over the past 12 months, showing that this method is still required for a percentage of cases to ensure funds are recouped.