Fluent Money Group believes that while the FLA’s latest second charge lending figures showing a 24% increase for February 2019, year on year, accurately represent their members’ experience, it might not account for other sources whose growth over the same period is higher.

Tim Wheeldon (pictured), COO at Fluent Money Group, said: “I have to admit that I thought the figure might have been higher overall. At Fluent, there was certainly a jump in new business in February, but ours was significantly higher in terms of numbers of new agreements, year on year.

“The current political and economic uncertainty is definitely a factor in persuading more people to stay put rather than move. The upshot of which is that we are seeing a lot more  applications for home improvements than we were a year ago. But there is more to the figures than that.

“A few years ago, we would not have seen such a sharp increase if the conditions had been the same. However, there has been a significant shift in intermediary attitudes to the use of second charge mortgages and I am delighted that advisers are coming to recognise that meeting the needs of customers who want to raise capital, particularly for this purpose, can be better served by a second charge loan than by a vanilla remortgage.”