Over the past few years the global financial crisis and the recession has resulted in soaring arrears levels amongst cash strapped homeowners in the UK, and with so many people falling into serious arrears with their mortgage repayments this naturally led to a steep rise in the number of repossessions, with many homeowners losing their properties due to problems with making repayments on their mortgage loans.

However, the Council of Mortgage Lenders has now released fresh data showing that both the level of arrears amongst homeowners in the UK and the number of repossessions is falling. The CML has put the fall in arrears levels and repossessions down to a number of factors, and has said that the number of home repossessions has been falling over the last few quarters.

According to the figures from the CML         around 8900 properties were repossessed by banks in the third quarter of this year, which reflected a 5 percent drop compared to the previous quarter, which saw 9400 properties being repossessed. The drop in arrears and repossession levels also marked the fourth quarterly decline.

The figures also showed that in the three months to the end of September the level of mortgage arrears also fell, with 176,000 mortgages having arrears of 2.5 percent or more, which was a fall from 178,200 for the three months to the end of June.

Despite the fall in home repossessions one industry official said that there had been an increase in the number of possession orders being sought, and this could mean that the trend seen over the past four quarters in terms of declining repossession numbers could go into reverse. Low interest rates and increased responsibility from lenders is thought to have contributed to the current drop in arrears and repossessions.