Given that it started with mortgages, lending for house purchase is very much the ‘ground zero’ of the economic implosion. The market has never fully recovered; perhaps it never will.

All of which makes the incoming Mortgage Market Review all the more significant. In one respect it is designed to save the market from itself and prevent lending getting dangerously out of control again. In another it threatens to curtail the already weak recovery.

In this special report we explore how the rules will affect both the residential mortgage market and the ostensibly unaffected buy-to-let market, and we assess the broader future prospects for mortgage lending.