When consumers find a property they want to buy and stump up the funds to pay for the residence, they then often need to make use of conveyancing solicitors, whether they utilise online conveyancing provisions or adopt another tactic. Figures released by the Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML) suggest that activity like this may have risen in September.
According to the organisation, which operates on a non-profit basis and is the trade association for the mortgage lending industry, gross lending during the 30-day period totalled around £12.9 billion. This was up on the same period last year, when £12.4 billion was lent.
Meanwhile, gross lending for the third quarter of this year totalled £38.6 billion, which was up by two per cent on the same time in 2010 and was also up by 15 per cent on the second quarter of this year, when lending reached £33.5 billion.
However, the use of conveyancing solicitors, including online conveyancing provisions, may have been down in September compared with the preceding month as lending decreased by four per cent compared with August.
Responding to the statistics, CML chief economist Bob Pannell remarked: “Both house purchase and remortgage lending appear to have fared well in September, but this is against the backdrop of subdued levels of activity.”
He went on to warn: “Short-term economic prospects for the UK are not favourable. The housing market is very sensitive to wider household confidence, and this seems likely to weaken over the coming months in response to the latest spike in consumer prices and headline unemployment figures.”
It is feared that economic problems in the US and the eurozone will have a knock-on effect in the UK markets, which could in turn hit the property sector. When people are less certain about their financial futures, they are generally more reticent to enter into housing purchases.