We are delighted to see so many Britons buying second homes for holidays, work or perhaps their retirement.

These are homes not used as rental properties but for those who have enough spare capital to purchase a second property of their own.

The two biggest reasons that people are cannot afford to pay their mortgage are unemployment and divorce.

Losing your job is an obvious one. If you stop getting the monthly salary that you agreed with the lender when taking out the deal then it figures you won’t be able to make repayments.

We are pleased to see the mortgage market bouncing back to life after a subdued start to the year which is great news for borrowers.

In February mortgage lenders dished out £13bn worth of mortgages, which sounds like a lot, but it was down 9% on the previous February according to Council of Mortgage Lenders figures.

We have many clients who live abroad but own houses in the UK or want to invest in the British property market.

Many are Brits abroad [perhaps working in financial centres such as Hong Kong, Singapore or New York. Others may be retired living in France, Spain or Italy in the continent.

We are delighted to see mortgage lenders being forced to change their lending criteria when discriminating on age.

In recent years a number of lenders have started to cut back on lending into retirement and setting maximum ages for mortgages as low as 65.

The Bank of England is road testing a new way of setting interest rates that could have a massive impact on mortgage borrowers in the next few years.

With Bank base rate at rock bottom 0.5% for more than six years we have all forgotten the days when the monthly rate setting was a moment of suspense.

We are delighted the general election is over and the financial and housing markets can return to a degree of certainty.

The election saw different parties competing with visions for the future of Britain on housing and mortgage policies.

Since the financial crash London house prices have boomed significantly and left the rest of the country in its wake.

However, we can report that house prices are set to grow more strongly outside of London for the first time in years, according to a new survey.

We are very concerned to learn that Nationwide Building Society is no longer offering new mortgage loans to individuals with income paid in foreign currency.

The shift came into force on April 8 and Nationwide blames new EU mortgage rules that aim to protect mortgage borrowers against exchange rate fluctuations.

Last month’s Budget had a number of important changes to savings policy in this country that could help improve you’re financial planning.

If you are a first-time buyer then there was a specific policy pledge to offer Government financial support to get on the housing ladder.