UK Personal Finance

A report from the Citizens Advice has shown that it could take, on average, 77 years for people asking for advice from the charity, to recover from their debts. This is because the people asking for help were on half of the national average income.

It seems that low income, combined with poorly informed and badly understood financial decisions are a main cause of debt problems. The charity reported that people were faced with a “lifetime of poverty” caused by the burdens of debt. With many people unable to afford the fee to declare bankruptcy.

Citizens Advice have reported that the number of people seeking advice with their financial problems have doubled in the past eight years. Many people seem to be stuck in the repetitive spiral of low incomes and very high debts.

Citizens Advice has called on the government to introduce Debt Relief Orders (DROs). DROs are intended for people on low incomes, who owe less than £15,000 and have very small assets. They would work like bankruptcy, although they would be very low- cost to initiate. The DROs would be intended to provide reassurance to those unable to afford other debt solutions.

It has been reported by the National Housing Federation that house price will rise by 40% in the next five years, breaking the £300,000 barrier.

The boom may accordingly provide reassurance for homeowners as they could profit from the increase, however there could be nasty consequences as parents may face paying their children’s mortgages. This may cause considerable problems for first time buyers as they could experience considerable personal and financial costs, reports have shown from the National Housing Federation who represents 1,300 housing associations. A generation of first time buyers may be stopped in their tracks as house prices reach exceptional figures.

Oxford Economics have researched Home Truths, which have detailed the current housing market as “distorted and dysfunctional”, showing that the average house price is eleven times the size of the average annual salary and has revealed that four million people are on waiting lists for social housing.

It has been argued that the increase in buy to let properties and second homes is undeniably contributing to the overvaluation of housing.

The government published a green paper , in response to the housing crisis, last month, in which it stated that plans were being made to build numerous three million houses by 2020, 70,000 of these new units being homes for key workers and lower income families. It is clear that the current housing problems are set to stay with Britain for a long time. Recent pronouncements from Gordon Brown have shown a step in the right direction for house buildings and it is now crucial that minister’s promises are delivered to help the current situation.

Reports have shown that the areas that will be hit hard by the boom are the south- east, revealing that the average house price will hit £392,900 com-pared with £247,762 which is the current average. The east will also reach prices of £340,200 against £211,880 which are the averages prices at the moment.

The reports forecasts that there will only be seven areas in England where the cheapest homes cost less than four times the average local salary;

• Barrow
• Burnley
• Hartlepool
• Hull
• Pendle
• Stoke- on- Trent
• Wansbeck

The report shows that in London the average house price will have reached £478,300 compared to the current prices of £318, 864.

London seems to be attracting particular attention from investors in countries such as France, Italy, Russia and Saudi Arabia, who are looking for properties for letting purposes rather than permanent residence.

The report advisors the Government to continue to increase its investments in preventing homelessness and to continue to support the regeneration of England’s most deprived housing markets by investing £400m a year in low- demand areas.

Fun Walls, Sticky Notes and People Poking, an online phenomenon that has been sending everyone potty.

30m people world wide are connected to Facebook, a site where you can build up a community, all of these your friends, colleagues and family; but could all this mean your money and identity are in danger. Many users enter all of their details onto their own page which also might include a picture that can be changed. Many users would include there address, phone number, home town and also there date of birth, along with these they ask questions like interests, favourite music, films the list goes on; but people feel obliged to enter all of this information and tell secrets from their past.

This all may seen like a bit of fun and games, its just somewhere to meet friends; but what’s the real story behind someone who has added you who you have never met could they be legit or just after your money and identity. Facebook recently was used by Oxford Dons to see if the students where behaving in their post-exam parties and celebrations.

Experian’s James Jones explained that joining Facebook means putting to much information about yourself. Even though this is good fun, people don’t realise how careful they have to be because of the amount of information you need to give out. Research today shows that burglars are just as likely to take sensitive documents, for example bank statements and many bills, just like they would take stereos, Sky Boxes ect.

ID fraud expert from Callcredit, Owen Roberts, adds that users upload information that is like gold to an identity thief, this causes devastation to thousands of people every day. He goes on to explain that when people say that their going on holiday or out for the night this alerts burglars and if the user has an address on the page this would be a recipe for disaster.

According to APACS fraud from banking online has risen by 44% last year to £33.5m; fraud from internet shopping hit £155m. Banks have recently started to ask more serious questions that only the account holder would know, for example, birth place and maiden name, before letting the user into the account over the phone or via the internet.

According to Experian between 5% and 10% of fraud is committed by a friend, relative or colleagues of the victim. Many users just accept people even if they do not know who it is; but there is a 50/50 chance that this might be a fraudster.

Robert advises users to be careful who they accept as friends and make sure your passwords are all different.

Jones also advises putting the odd piece of information that you have made up as this will throw off any fraudster.

Article Author Personal-Finance_Loan.co.uk