London - Nationalized Northern Rock mortgage lender was Friday accused of being the "most aggressive" among British banks on the sensitive issue of home repossessions, a charge it immediately rejected.

A BBC report, based on information gained from charities linked to mortgage lending, said Northern Rock, Britain's fifth-biggest lender, was twice as likely as other banks to move to repossess a home.

"There's not a lot of flexibility being shown by Northern Rock," Chris Tapp, director of the charity Credit Action, said. "They are not giving people a lot of time, they seem to be moving for repossessions quite quickly as a resort."

The accusation was strongly rejected Friday by Ron Sandler, the government-appointed chairman of Northern Rock, which became the first high-profile casualty of the subprime-induced credit crunch last year and was nationalized in February.

"I would deny strenuously that we have been overly aggressive," Sandler said.

"I refute any suggestion that our position has been anything other than commercial and consistent with the way this bank has operated in the past."

Repossessions remained a "last resort," a Northern Rock spokesman added.

The number of houses repossessed by Northern Rock jumped by 491 to 4,201 during the three months up to the end of September, Northern Rock figures showed.

A total of nearly 20,000 homes were repossessed in the first half of this year by all of Britain's banks and mortgage lenders.

The Council of Mortgage Lenders said Friday that the figure could reach 45,000 for the whole year. (dpa)