The mortgage market at the moment is seeing an increasing number of people falling short of the completion stage, it has been suggested.

Despite being initially approved, Ray Boulger, senior technical manager at John Charcol, claimed some are falling at the final hurdle.

"One of the key reasons for that is because of the difficulty in getting mortgages, where people are buying property and there is a chain involved – which clearly there is in a lot cases," Mr Bougler revealed.

People may not get the access to the finance they need, he added, which is where the "whole chain falls apart".

He cited this as one of the biggest problems facing the market at the moment, yet he still expects activity to pick up later in the year.

The Council of Mortgage Lenders reported on July 20th that gross mortgage lending totalled an estimated £12.3 billion in June.

This marked a 17 per cent increase from the £10.5 billion of lending seen in the previous month, although it is 48 per cent lower than levels seen in June 2008.