Unexpected events ‘causing financial woes’

Unexpected life changing events are causing debt management problems for many thousands of UK consumers, new research has suggested.

According to data compiled on behalf of Abbey, around 15 million people in the UK have suffered some form of financial hardship during the past two years as a result of a significant change in their lives.

Around 5.9 million Britons have been obliged to take a pay cut over the past 24 months and a dramatic change in a person’s life comes as a surprise in close to a third of instances, Abbey reports.

“Our research shows that 15 million Brits suffered financially because they failed to plan for these changes,” said Nici Audhlam-Gardiner, head of mortgages at Abbey.

“We all know that it pays to be prepared but what’s interesting is just how many people experienced a big life change in the relatively short period of two years.”

Accountancy firm Grant Thornton expects to see around 110,000 British consumers declare insolvency by way of a debt solution over the course of 2008, it was revealed recently.