Aiming to help victims of the credit crunch

Aug 27 2008 By Ed Saunt, Surrey Herald

A PENSIONER has set up a business in Sunbury that she claims helps the biggest victims of the credit crunch.

Home repossessions nationwide soared to a 15-year high in June and 68-year-old Jacqueline Stanton says her firm - ABC Property and Finance - provides the answer for families who fear the arrival of the bailiffs.

ABC, which Jacqueline started a year ago, acts as an agent between people whose homes are under threat and investors - mainly ex-pats from Spain - with money available to buy property.

They buy the homes at market value and rent them back to the seller at market rates on long-term contracts paid out of the equity remaining in the house and ABC take a cut of between 1-1.5%.

Jacqueline, who worked as an accountant for Halifax and IBM, came up with the idea for ABC two years ago when a woman she knew approached her in financial turmoil.

She said: "A lady came to me and said: 'I've got the bailiffs coming next week - I don't know what to do. ' So I actually went to court with her, held off the bailiffs and bought the house from her myself. Two years later she's still there."

Now, as the credit crunch bites, Jacqueline has found more and more people are under threat of repossession and has moved the company out of her home into an office in Heathcroft Avenue, Sunbury in June.

While running a business that benefits from other people's plight might make it difficult for some to sleep at night, Jacqueline says her conscience is clear.

"We do make a profit but we try very hard to be as sympathetic as we can," she said.

"There are a lot of nasty companies out there who will pay as little as 60% of a property's value to take advantage of someone in trouble but we pay market values.

"I think there is a need for a bit more sympathy in this sector but there are always going to be people trying to cash in on people's misery.

"I'm a pensioner and a widow and I need something to do so I started this. All I am trying to do is help people with a problem."

Although Jacqueline has seen the number of people threatened with repos-session soar, she can see an end to the crisis in the housing market.

She said: "I don't believe all the doom and gloom merchants. I don't think the housing market will be in the doldrums for more than a couple of years. There will always be a need for housing."The problem with repossessions has come because a lot of building societies are so bloody-minded. They have a lot to answer for."