CML maintains that lenders are making "strenuous efforts" to ensure repossessions were a last resort but it still expects the 2009 figure to rise to 75,000 homes.

There has also been a rise in the number of people falling into arrears but a new protocol introduced recently to ensure lenders give some breathing space to homeowners who have fallen behind with their repayments could be having an effect.

By the end of 2008 the CML report shows, 182,600 mortgages (1 in 64) had arrears worth 2.5% or more of the outstanding balance owed but this is still a tiny percentage of all UK mortgages (1.57%, up from 1.08% at the end of 2007).

In Brighton & Hove during the last year a total of 412 homes were repossessed, a 17% increase on 2007.