The Finance & Leasing Association’s second charge lending figures might be too conservative, Tim Wheeldon, chief operating officer at Fluent Money Group has argued.

The FLA found a 24% year-on-year increase in February, something Wheeldon (pictured) said doesn’t tally with what he’s noticed.

He 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.”