Alistair Darling and Gordon Brown chant the same mantra, the government’s investment is backed by the assets of the bank, “a high quality loan book”, which they claim has been verified by the FSA – as if the FSA employs surveyors and has the competence to take a view. Anecdotaly this untruth was unraveling, Anatole Kaletsky said this week that it was a delusion to believe that “Northern Rock had a “sound book of assets” when it was the country’s biggest lender of mortgages worth more than the houses on which they are secured.” Guido now has the hard numbers to prove it:These figures were compiled yesterday and are taken from analysis of the Courts Service, Possession Claims Online Database. Guido has obtained the list of 690 individual Northern Rock Possession Claims, averaging some 40 every working day. Of all mortgage lenders Northern Rock has the absolute highest rate of possession claims. Hardly evidence of a sound loan book…

UPDATE : As of midnight last night Northern Rock has withdrawn from offering 125% mortgages.

UPDATE : In the comments a co-conspirator has made an effort to normalise the results by market share using market leader HBOS against Northern Rock:

HBOS has 20.4% of the market, with 520 reposessions in Feb = 25 repos per 1% of market

Northern Rock has 7.2% of the market, with 690 reposessions in Feb = 95 repos per 1% of the market.

In short, Northern Rock repossesses almost 4 houses to every one repossesed by HBOS, when market share is factored into the equation.

Hat-tip : HousePriceCrash.co.uk via LabRat