A decade of pain: 12 homes a day lost after collapse of Northern Rock

TWELVE Northern Rock mortgage holders have lost their homes every day since the bank’s collapse at the beginning of the global financial meltdown a decade ago.

Around 3,100 of the bank’s customers are also still in negative equity, meaning their debt is higher than the value of their house.

But as thousands struggle with the lender’s legacy of ruin, former chief executive Adam Applegarth, 55, is enjoying a £304,000-a-year pension in retirement.

The boss, who quit when his risky lending practices blew up the bank, has since been linked to a toxic loan bubble in the car finance market.

Analysis of annual reports from 2007 onwards shows at least 43,000 homeowners have suffered a repossession or voluntarily surrendered their house – nearly 12 a day.

The way these are recorded in accounts has changed during that time, and up-to-date statistics are not available for many parts of the business later sold off, so the true number could be far higher.

The current owner, statecontrolled UK Asset Resolution, said that of those who had lost their homes, 23,000 were enforced repossessions.

Around 32,000 borrowers still own less than a quarter of their house, and 2,532 are more than three months behind on their payments, owing £407.5million. Liberal Democrat leader Sir Vince Cable said last night: ‘The run on Northern Rock marked the start of the biggest economic disaster in our lifetimes.

‘It’s an example about the potential catastrophe if the industry isn’t properly regulated in the interests of finanseen cial stability. Enormous numbers of people have been ruined as a result of reckless lending for which they ultimately paid a heavy price.’

The Newcastle-based lender’s collapse was followed by the failure of Lehman Brothers in the US, and the taxpayerbacked rescues of Lloyds and NatWest owner Royal Bank of Scotland. The Rock was widely as the nation’s most reckless lender, doling out around £7billion of ultra-risky debt in 2005 alone, much of it to firsttime buyers.

On September 13, 2007, it emerged that it had been forced to beg the Bank of England for emergency support, prompting queues of desperate customers wanting to withdraw their cash.

It was finally nationalised the following February, with Virgin Money eventually taking over the least toxic parts of the bank.

Mr Applegarth, 55, had left the bank two months earlier, shortly before it emerged he had been having an affair with a junior staff member.

He was given a £760,000 payoff and a £2.6million pension pot. He now lives in luxury with wife Patricia, 56, at their home in Northumberland worth more than £2million.

He began working for the private equity business Pine Brook Partners in 2015 as an adviser and consultant. The firm ploughed £50million into the Car Finance Company, the country’s biggest vehicle loan business for borrowers with bad credit.

But the company has been hit by a surge in customers unable to pay off their debts, and in June, Pine Brook admitted it would never get its money back. The car finance business has told staff it will shut down within two years.

It is not clear how involved Mr Applegarth was in the decision to back the company, or if he still works with Pine Brook, which declined to comment.

UKAR and the Treasury declined to comment.

‘They paid a heavy price’