My Home Was My Castle: Evictions and Repossessions in Britain

Using data for 1991 to 1997 from the British Household Panel Survey we investigate the incidence of housing finance problems, evictions, and repossessions. Previous research on repossessions and problematical housing debt in Britain has focused on cross-sectional data. This paper contributes uniquely to the literature by examining the sequence of household and individual events associated with housing arrears and evictions. Our results show that the previous experience of financial problems has a significant and positive association with the current financial situation and the probability of eviction and that negative financial surprises are an important route into financial difficulties controlling for other changes such as divorce or loss of employment. Families with higher income and where the head or his or her spouse is in work have a lower risk of experiencing problems meeting their housing costs.