Government accused of cover up
The Government agency who produce figures for release to the press and public have been accused of sugar coating figures to soften the blow of the credit crunch.
The Land Registry do not include reposessions, auctions and other sales on the grounds that they dont reflect the full price sales figures. In reality, the figures mentioned represent ‘non-commercial’ properties only so The Land Registry CAN discount them. Other ‘non-commercial’ include multi million pound office premises etc so we would not expect them to be included!
Personally I dont see the problem, the people who have a problem with this way of producing figures are the press and lets not forget that they want a severe a story as possible to sell newspapers. Thats what killed the feel good factor in the first place! while lenders such as the Nationwide and Halifax produce more sensational figures The land Registry have been using this system for years without any complaint. Or are the press saying that The Land Registry changed the way they could their figures to suit the incumbent New Labour Government? Nope.
Yet more press anti-spin has it that over 45,000 homes will be repossesed, now where did they get these figures from? Could they have looked at the US and scaled it to the UK size population. Yet another spin!