Deputy First Minister Sturgeon avoids questions on giving homeowners more protection from repossession

Amid yesterday’s BBC television programme on home repossessions in Scotland, you’ve got to wonder whose side the Scottish Government are on when they can’t even give Scottish homeowners more protection against lenders repossessing their homes … (obviously on the side of the banks & lenders, not homeowners – Ed)

The Press & Journal report :

Sturgeon ‘burying head in the sand’

Call for scottish homeowners to get more protection against repossession

By Tim Pauling

Published: 09/04/2009

Deputy First Minister Nicola Sturgeon was last night accused of “burying her head in the sand” over home repossessions amid calls for Scotland to adopt the same protection for homeowners as England and Wales.

It followed claims on a BBC TV programme last night that 7,500 Scots face losing their homes this year.

The show found homeowners in Scotland are more at risk from aggressive lenders because of the failure to adopt pre-action court protocol, which forces lenders to negotiate with borrowers before taking them to court.

This had cut repossessions by half since it was introduced last year, according to the programme.

In November the Liberal Democrats, Labour, Green parties and Independent MSP Margo MacDonald unsuccessfully called on the Scottish Government to adopt similar measures.

Labour health spokeswoman Cathy Jamieson said more needed to be done because the government’s mortgage to rent scheme had only helped 150 people.

“Homeowners in Scotland deserve the same protection from repossession as those south of the border,” she said. “Nicola Sturgeon is burying her head in the sand.”

Lib Dem housing spokes-man Jamie Stone accused Ms Sturgeon and Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill of “turning a blind eye”.

He said: “This programme proves the opposition parties were right last November to launch a joint campaign urging the SNP government to change the law and give Scottish homeowners the maximum protection from the threat of repossession.”

But a Scottish Government spokeswoman called the opposition claims “ridiculous”.

“The Scottish Government is taking extensive action to help homeowners in the current economic climate and we are far ahead of the game compared with the situation south of the border, having had mortgage rescue schemes in operation for several years,” she said.

The Mortgage Rights (Scotland) Act gives owners a right to ask a sheriff to give them time to pay off arrears, while Scottish courts also have the flexibility to award costs.

The Home Owners Support Fund has also been increased to £35million.

The spokeswoman claimed that the pre-action protocol in England and Wales had “no significant legal effect” and questioned whether it had led to a 50% cut in the number of repossession cases going through the courts.

Legal Aid upset in Mortgage Rights case

More From A Diary of Injustice in Scotland as a mortgage rights act case causes problems for the Scottish Legal Aid Board ...

Access to justice failure shows Legal Aid victory on mortgage rights case could still mean your money or your house

A recent court victory in a case involving the use of the Mortgage Rights Act (Scotland) 2001 to challenge a repossession has resulted in lawyers claiming that legal aid will now be useless for mortgage rights case and that lawyers wont take on representing the public in similar legal actions.

The Mortgage Rights Act allows homeowners to challenge a lender repossessing their home, but you have to go to court to do it, and also of course you have to use a lawyer to get to court. If you do not have the money to pursue legal action, you may qualify for legal aid, but in turn, you need a lawyer to apply for that legal aid.If you win your case, generally the Legal Aid Board will not ask for its money back from you, although strangely enough, SLAB doesn't seem to want to pursue the mortgage lenders for recovery of funds ...

While the Scottish Legal Aid Board has not asked for money back in such cases since 2003, a recent BBC News report seems to indicate that SLAB may now be changing their policy, at the inspiration of some in the legal & financial professions no doubt, and want their money back from homeowners ...

Mike Dailly : Legal Aid now meaningless for mortgage repossession cases

Unfortunately for the public, the best suggestion from the legal profession in the report comes from solicitor Mike Dailly, of the Govan Law Centre, where he states that legal aid is now meaningless for mortgage repossession, with the report going on to say that solicitors will probably not take on such cases in the future.

A better suggestion perhaps then would be to call for the opening of the legal services market, to expand the availability of, and drive down the costs of legal representation to the public, so anyone who needs representation in such a case, and legal aid funding, can get it, without it reaching the costs currently associated with such actions.

Don't get me wrong about the Govan Law Centre, I'm all for what it does and how it helps people, but just a stones throw away from Mike Dailly's own house, a poor innocent woman has been systematically victimised and abused by a Housing Association in a long running campaign designed to ruin her health and her life, which has involved using lawyers to bully and harass the lady for years, even changing her secured tenancy into an assured tenancy, without any legal basis for doing so while the victimised tenant has been and is continually denied any access to proper legal representation and justice.

The innocent woman, who has been through much hardship and personal loss, has been held in sequestration for nearly a decade by a well known lawyer who is now a serving Sheriff, solely it would seem, on the basis of recovering legal costs from a negligence action against a firm of solicitors which the tenant lodged many years ago.

Many see the sequestration itself, which has run for nearly ten years, as an act of revenge for the tenant's bravery in making a claim of solicitors negligence against the infamously corrupt Law Society of Scotland's Master Insurance Policy, and within the tenant's case, the usual suspects of the Law Society appear - Chief Executive Douglas Mill, Director of Regulation Philip Yelland ... little wonder then that the poor victimised tenant is constantly being denied access to legal representation and justice , and her life continually being interdicted by members of Scotland's gallant legal profession who are just peachy about abusing the public when it suits ...

So, how about doing something Mr Dailly ?

Only a stones throw from your own house .. you should be able to manage it ? Could you manage to help a woman whose life is being blighted, abused, and ruined by a housing association and some of your colleagues in the legal profession, just so they can get their hands on her flat ? Surely access to justice should prevail and the lady's legal problems resolved to allow her to live in peace ?

Getting back to the BBC coverage of the Mortgage Rights case, the new report goes on to quote Cathy Craigie MSP, the MSP behind the Mortgage Rights Act, has written to Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill to see if he will review the law to protect the public's rights & interests ... but with Mr MacAskill constantly bowing to big business and the professions recently, there may not be too much hope of that.

As for the Scottish Legal Aid Board - well, wouldn't they be better going after those financial institutions and lenders who lose these kinds of legal actions, rather than going after the homeowner who won the case ?

They have plenty of money anyway, so asking financially ruined homeowners to pay back the legal expenses who won the case, while allowing the lenders to escape paying the entire costs of the case seems to be a bit one sided.

Will the SNP and Justice Secretary MacAskill do something for homeowners in such cases or is this yet another step too far for Mr MacAskill in protecting the public from bullying lenders and a hungry legal profession ?