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Northern Rock has pledged to stop repossession actions until a mortgage borrower is six months behind on their repayments.

The move from the government-owned lender follows similar moves a similar declaration from the Royal Bank of Scotland last week and Bradford & Bingley, also now controlled by the government.

Northern Rock has come under fire over the last year for having higher rates of repossession than other lenders – which the bank itself says is due to its Together mortgage book where loan-to-value rates of 100 per cent or more were offered.

A third of Northern Rock's mortgage book are Together Mortgages, but they represent three-quarters of repossessions.

However, the Novocastrian lender stated in cases where repossessions do occur it has worked with customers on average for 15 months from when they first fell into arrears.

Gary Hoffman, Chief Executive Northern Rock, said: "We continue to work with customers facing repayment difficulties to try and agree an acceptable debt management solution and avoid repossession.

"In the vast majority of cases, where repossession regrettably does take place, we have been working with the customer for well over six months."

He added the firm was now formalising its repossession policy to ensure no borrower faces repossession moves in the first six months of falling into arrears.

In the Pre-Budget Report last week, Alistair Darling announced mortgage lenders had agreed to not start moves to start repossession for three months.

2009 is expected to see a rise in the level of people falling into arrears and repossessions, although the government has announced its £200 million Mortgage Rescue scheme to aid 6,000 vulnerable households.

Last week the Financial Services Authority (FSA) wrote to lenders to giving them a deadline of the end of January to treat borrowers falling into trouble fairly.