David Prosser: Don't forget those about to fall off the ladder

Outlook: While the world wonders whether the banks will relax their lending criteria, an increasing number of those who already have mortgage finance are running into trouble. Figures from the Council of Mortgage Lenders show that there was a 12 per cent increase in repossessions during the third quarter.

That's bad enough, but figures published simultaneously by the Ministry of Justice were much more worrying. It said the number of court orders for repossession made by county courts during the second quarter were up by 24 per cent.

Not all of those orders will translate into people actually losing their homes, but you can take it for granted that repossession totals will continue to rise pretty dramatically – note that the CML also warned that there has been an 8 per cent increase in the number of people in arrears.

How bad might things get? Well, in the first three quarters of 2008, just over 30,000 people lost their homes. That was significantly more than the 26,200 total for the whole of 2007, but we'll still come in this year significantly below the worst year on record – 75,500 in 1991.

Moreover, one difference between this housing slump and the one of the early Nineties is the greater number today of properties owned by buy-to-let landlords, many of whom are financially stretched and imminently facing rises in borrowing costs as they come off short-term fixed-rate deals that were miles cheaper than anything now available.

The one bright spot in this picture is that even if we do end up close to 1991 repossession levels, the problem should still be manageable, through a combination of actions from both government and lenders. The total mortgage liabilities of, say, 75,000 homeowners are tiny in proportion to the financial assistance pumped into the banking system so far.

This should be a priority area for Monday's pre-Budget report. Lenders have already been forced to sign up to a code making repossession a genuine last resort, and this has to be rigorously enforced. But there can also be more support for those who can't be saved from repossession without some form of additional state benefit. It's the least that people struggling with mortgage repayments have a right to expect, given the cash already handed out to the over-extended lenders who are now set to take away their homes.