Mortgage lending fell 17% in the three months before the Mortgage Market Review kicked in at the end of April, it was claimed this morning.

E.surv, part of LSL, estimates that house purchase approvals fell 6% in April, when it says there were 13,000 fewer loans than in January.

The firm says that although house purchase approvals in April were up 15.3% on the same month last year, the recent monthly falls are stalling the housing market recovery.

Richard Sexton, director of e.surv, said: “Borrowers must now prove they can withstand potential interest rises of up to 7%, as well as answering a host of detailed questions about future finances.”

However, e.surv’s forecasts – which attempt to anticipate official Bank of England statistics – could be controversial.

Mortgage guru Ray Boulger, of John Charcol, hit out angrily at the “misleading” way that mortgage approvals are reported, thanks to the “nonsense” of seasonal adjustment.

The Bank of England says, as does e.surv, that mortgage lending dropped in both February and March. In fact, Boulger says, they actually rose in both months – by 8.7% in February and 15.4% in March.

Boulger points out: “The seasonally adjusted figures are in fact lower than the actual figures nearly every month except December and January, because the reported figures in these months are massaged upwards by a large margin.

“This winter the seasonally adjusted figure for December was 31% higher than the actual figure and for January it was 29% higher.

“The nonsense of seasonal adjustments is amply demonstrated by reference to the reported figure for January of this year which was 124,844 – whereas the real figure was 96,762.”