The man with the shaved head, eyebrow piercing and the soft features looks relieved when they take his house away.

When the judge asks him if he consents to the order he nods.

The plaintiff’s lawyer – a sharp-featured woman representing the bank to whom shaved-head owes money – looks over at him, smiles, nods. Good job, she seems to be saying. You did well. He smiles and nods back.

The woman sitting next to me, Hannah, a policy worker at the South Australian Council of Social Service, leans over and whispers: “He didn’t really have much choice”.

Shaved-head gets up, wanders amiably past where we’re sitting, and leaves by the door in the back. I watch him go. The judge calls the next case.

That small vignette, acted out by judge, lawyer and defendant in hushed tones, sums up well the ongoing operations of what are known as possession hearings.

It is the inexorably dry and matter-of-fact process by which the banks strip people of their assets when they fail to pay back what’s owed.

Welcome to the Possession List.

Hannah from SACOSS is in my ear because she’s got an agenda to push. Her organisation doesn’t believe enough is being done to assist people who run into financial trouble – the sort of financial trouble which can eventually lead to you losing your house.

The organisation estimates that each year about 84,000 South Australians have a credit problem needing legal help.

“[It’s] just the execution stage,” he says. “The judge and jury have made the decision. There’s very few people who are going to get a reprieve in that situation”

Many of those people fight their way through what can be a dense and confusing system without any help, advice or representation.

What this means is that many of these people end up in the Supreme Court, with their fate decided by default, without a defence.

Many don’t even bother to turn up.

A 2009 study found that of the more than 28,000 debt claims lodged in the Magistrate’s Court – which handles debts of between $6000 and $40,000 – 45 per cent resulted in a default judgement.

The defendants filed some form of defence in only 11 per cent of the cases.

When a person takes out a loan from a bank to buy a house, they’re legally obliged to repay it. If they don’t, the bank has the right to take possession of the house and sell it to recover the loan.

But to get to that stage, banks go through a lengthy process.

First, they’ll call you – what’s going on?

You’ll likely negotiate an informal payment plan. When the bank finds you still aren’t sticking to that, they’ll send you a very long formal letter warning you they’re concerned about your capacity to make good on your loan – and advising you to seek financial counselling.

Then, if you still aren’t paying – or you haven’t negotiated a formal hardship plan through a financial ombudsman service – they’ll serve papers on you and take you to court.

About 30 to 40 individual cases end up at the Possession List every week.

Welfare agencies say that number is far too high, and could be reduced significantly with the right resources in the right places.

SACOSS chief executive Ross Womersley says three things could be done to help the situation – more resources for financial counsellors, financial help as you need it, and legal representation for debtors who end up before the court.

SACOSS Executive Director Ross Womersley. Photo: Nat Rogers / InDaily

There are a wide range of government-supported small service providers, but SACOSS says that, at best, they make up a fragmented and incomplete safety net.

So tight are resources that some providers have taken to handing out fact sheets produced by interstate financial counsellors – where the laws differ markedly from South Australia’s.

Most of the agencies’ staff are financial counsellors, rather than lawyers. That often puts them at a distinct disadvantage when they attempt to negotiate on a client’s behalf and find a bank lawyer on the other end of the phone.

The State Government’s new $410,000 annual investment in a Consumer Credit Legal Agency announced in this year’s budget will go a long way to fixing that, says Womersley, as will extra funding announced for financial counsellors.

Many people in the system feel their situation is too hopeless to face, and so they don’t – can’t – help themselves, former bank repossession lawyer Julia Bidstrup tells me.

“No one would ever be able to say that it comes out of the blue as a surprise,” she says.

“[They think] the fairy is going to walk down from the back of the garden, wave a magic wand, and all my problems will go away.

“That’s what a lot of people do – they’re like the bunny in the headlights. And then suddenly they’ve got legal proceedings issued against them.”

To combat that learned helplessness, financial counsellors need to be inside court buildings.

Chris Boundy – Legal Services Commission. Photo: Nat Rogers / InDaily

Manager of access services at the Legal Services Commission Chris Boundy says that by the time a case comes before a judge, it’s too late.

“[It’s] just the execution stage,” he says. “The judge and jury have made the decision. There’s very few people who are going to get a reprieve in that situation”

All the agencies I spoke to there’s a need for more financial counselling. But after spending a day in court, I had my own issue. Most of the people I saw – those that turned up – represented themselves. Why didn’t these people get legal representation? Would it have helped? And why do so many people not bother to turn up to court?

The judge presiding over the Possession List has a row of thin white folders in front of him, about 30 in total. Each one represents a case – someone’s home. The judge moves through them left to right, opening each one, making an order, moving onto the next. Proceedings are quick because almost no defendants show up.

The court’s pews are full of lawyers – they outnumber defendants four-to-one. They swap spots with each other as the judge moves through the cases, like players coming on and off the bench at a football game. They ask for an adjournment, or let the judge know the debtors are negotiating with the bank for hardship consideration, or ask for an order – that’s what it’s called when the bank asks for permission to sell your house. In one case, a family friend has offered to make the payments on the lease, which the bank is quite satisfied with.

We would have gone through 10 cases before we reach one with a defendant in court. A bloke in an orange construction jumpsuit is up. He’s got long, dark hair and bristle on his face. There’s a spot of dirt on his shoulder.

He owes $19,000 to his bank. He’s already applied for hardship and been knocked back.

“I’ve paid as much as I can,” he tells the court.

“I missed the last month, I missed one. But I’ll make it up as soon as I can.”

“So you’re 15 months behind?,” the judge asks him.

Work has been slow. And his old man has been ill, so he’s been caring for him. But they’ve moved dad to a nursing home now – “I just can’t do it no more”, he says.

“Unfortunately the plaintiff is entitled to the order,” the Judge says. “There’s no proper basis on which not to make it”.

Bidstrup  handled repossessions during her time with the bank, and she tells me they’re often a good option for a person who simply can’t afford to repay their loan.

“It is the last step. I used to do it, and it seems like a horrible thing to do to try to get someone out of their house – but if that person has not made an effort … then the best thing to happen is for that person to give up the property and to say to the bank you go ahead and you sell it.

“At the end of the day, if a person can’t afford to pay their mortgage, there’s no point in trying to force them to stay in the home and force the bank to keep carrying a limping customer. The banks are within their rights to do what they’re doing.”

“Often the die has been cast and there’s not a lot a lawyer can do to really stop the process.”

Not a single welfare agency sends representatives to the possession lists. In lower courts there is some coverage, but it’s patchy and insufficient at best. And legal aid isn’t funded to cover civil court cases.

That leaves people to fend for themselves against the bank’s lawyers – or, more often, to fail to show up at all.

Those people are being effectively abandoned by the system, SACOSS chief executive Ross Womersley tells me.

“The lack of a legal representative in that context, or even the lack of someone who understood the system to work with them through it is deeply problematic. Some will say that representation needs to be much earlier in the piece, and we would agree that ideally it would be fantastic for people to be able to access that stuff from the outset, and that’s where the courts have to play a role in making sure that people get clear and accurate information.”

Womersley believes legal representation would mean significantly fewer people would lose their houses – instead, they’d end up with a hardship variation, or, in the worst case, be given a chance to sell the house themselves.

That in itself is a key issue – if a bank gets an order it will typically sell the house quickly for a fraction of its true price, just to recover the debt. If the owner gets the chance to sell, they can often get a reasonable price.

Womersley’s view isn’t shared by everyone.

Chris Boundy from the Legal Services Commission says it’s simply far too late to help someone once they’re before a judge – and the enormous resource costs of hiring a lawyer could be better spent somewhere else. Somewhere where there’s more chance of success.

“There’s not a lot of value, I think, in putting all your resources into providing a lawyer at that stage, because often the die has been cast and there’s not a lot a lawyer can do to really stop the process.”