The Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML) has revised down its forecast for repossessions in 2009 to 65,000 from an earlier estimate of 75,000.

However, that is still much higher than the 40,000 repossessions recorded in 2008, which was the highest since 1996. House prices have decreased by more than 20% from its peak in 2007 and as unemployment has risen many homeowners have had trouble meeting their mortgage payments.

The CML said large cuts in interest rates by the Bank of England (BoE) to a record low of 0.5% were helping homeowners.

The CML expects lending conditions to remain tight this year and that despite recent encouraging signs, it was too early to be sure that recent positive data pointed to a nascent recovery in the housing market. The CML said it expected net mortgage lending to fall by £5bn this year.