Conveyancing portal SortRefer saw an upward swing in activity after things had calmed down following the initial aftermath of the Brexit vote.

The number of users of the SortRefer portal was up 4% by year end after the Brexit vote and while conveyancing business fell in the two months afterwards, by November overall instructions had increased by 5% over the numbers pre-vote.

Remortgage instructions increased by 19% in the six months following the vote, with buy-to-let instructions up by 6% over the same period.

Kevin Tunnicliffe, managing director of SortRefer, said: “We should have realised that if Leicester City could win the Premier League title then anything was capable of being overturned and so it transpired. The result of the Brexit vote, no matter on which side of the issue you stood, was a complete surprise. After the initial shock and the realisation that the world had not stopped spinning, activity came back to normal for us and in fact we ended the year very strongly.

“I think pundits will be very cautious about their predictions for 2017 after what happened in 2016. As the CML is suggesting only a small percentage increase in likely lending levels this year, I think that is a clue to how we should all view the prospects for 2017.”