Personal debt continues to rise
Published On 4 June 2007
The level of personal debt - including credit card borrowing and mortgages - continued to grow over the last year, new figures suggest.According to charity Credit Action, the total level of consumer debt rose by 10.4 per cent in the 12 months to the end of April - and now stands at £1.325 trillion.
Of this, £1.1 trillion is secured lending - such as mortgages and home owner loans. This figure represents an increase of 11.4 per cent on the situation 12 months ago.
Credit lending also increased over the year to the end of April, but at a slower rate. In fact, credit lending rose by 5.4 per cent to £213 billion.
Now, the typical household in the UK owes £8,816 excluding any mortgage borrowing and with mortgages, the figure increases to £54,771.
On average, people in the UK have to spend around nine per cent of their take home pay servicing their debt.
Recent figures from the Insolvency Service revealed that these increasing levels of debt mean that 46.7 per cent more people took out IVAs in the first quarter of 2007 compared to the first three months the year before.
