MORE than 50 homes in Coventry and Warwickshire are being repossessed every week. The alarming figures reflect the huge debts facing local families. Shock figures for the final three months of 2007 from the Ministry of Justice reveal the misery of repossession orders in the city and county. And experts predict the situation is getting worse as the credit crunch continues to bite hard. In Coventry, 298 homeowners - about 25 a week - were taken to court by their mortgage lender in the last quarter of the year, up 35 per cent on the same period a year before. In Warwickshire the number of people who faced being homeless rose by 16 per cent in the final quarter of 2007, to 368. Warwick and Leamington saw an increase of 18 per cent with 58 homeowners taken to court. In Rugby repossession orders were up by 61 per cent in quarter three and nine per cent in the final quarter, a total of 151 orders in the second part of the year. In Nuneaton, 50 per cent increases in quarter three and 13 per cent in quarter four led to 478 orders in the last six months of 2007. But latest figures from the Council of Mortgage Lenders show the number of people whose homes were repossessed in the UK last year rose 21 percent to reach an eight year high. The CML said 27,100 homes, the highest figure since 1999, were taken over by lenders after people fell behind with repayments. Dr Michael Orton, of the employment research institute at Warwick University, said: "Studies tend to identify a change of circumstances as a particular cause of indebtedness, losing a job, divorce, anything that causes upheaval can be a real catalyst. "Many people carry a high level of repayment commitments which means a slight change in circumstances can swing people from a manageable set of repayments into a more difficult position. "When people approach whoever they owe money to. they get offered more credit which can lead to further repayments and further interest payments."