The following table shows the number of mortgage possession orders made in all London county courts in the last five years.
These figures do not indicate how many houses have been repossessed through the courts, since not all the orders will have resulted in the issue and execution of warrants of possession.
The civil procedure rules state that all claims for the repossession of land must be commenced in the district in which the land is situated. However, county courts’ jurisdictions are not coterminous with London borough boundaries, and therefore any single court’s repossession actions are likely to relate to homes in a number of different boroughs.
Possession orders made3 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 Barnet 66 100 97 143 302 Bow 176 248 295 456 817 Brentford 110 113 124 189 290 Bromley 103 161 235 271 486 Central London 43 88 101 162 281 Clerkenwell 31 35 59 78 132 Croydon 257 254 338 394 644 Edmonton 176 206 228 285 553 Ilford 105 115 93 219 309 Kingston-upon-Thames 58 58 91 94 165 Lambeth 117 160 195 311 533 Mayors and City 1 1 0 2 0 Romford 111 118 179 211 445 Shoreditch 48 80 113 155 225 Uxbridge 108 100 98 149 227 Wandsworth 96 100 135 187 295 West London 40 40 64 79 150 Willesden 155 147 236 255 459 Woolwich 53 96 96 181 348 Greater London total 1,854 2,220 2,777 3,821 6,661 1 Local authority and private 2 Does not include the small number of possession actions entered in the High Court. 3 The court, following a judicial hearing, may grant an order for possession immediately. This entitles the claimant to apply for a warrant to have the defendant evicted. However, even where a warrant for possession is issued, the parties can still negotiate a compromise to prevent eviction.