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Mortgage Adviser called all those lenders that claimed they were temporarily exiting the market last week to get an update as to whether they had now decided to call it a day or were still hoping to make a dramatic return.

We hit the telephones as the team was regularly being asked whether Edeus, Mortgages Plc, Wave and Lehman Brothers had any intention of coming back. Mortgage Adviser's reporters found none of the lenders that said they were only momentarily turning their backs on mortgages at the start of 2008 would state they were planning to permanently leave the market as we enter the second half of the year.

We also found some of the well-known names you would have expected these lenders to retain if they expected to make a speedy return to the mortgage market - such as Guy Batchelor, executive director of sales and marketing of Lehman Brothers and Nicola Severn, head of PR for Edeus - are no longer with the businesses they were once key spokesmen for. The responses the Mortgage Adviser team uncovered when they asked these lenders about their intentions did not make these companies seem like they were returning anytime soon. Most of these lenders left the market in the first few months of this year and we are now into the second half of 2008.

If your partner walked out on you in the first quarter of the year and was not back by the second May Bank Holiday weekend most of you would feel it was time to contact a divorce lawyer and wave goodbye to that relationship. On Monday, Future Mortgages became the latest lender to issue a statement that it planned to stop offering new loans. A statement from its parent company Citi Group revealed that, as a result of a strategic review, Future Mortgages would cease new lending from Wednesday 21 May. Unlike others who pledged this would only be a temporary retreat before they bounded back into the market, Future Mortgages bosses were quick to put their hands up and state this was goodbye from them. While the exit of yet another lender from the market is extremely sad news, at least Future Mortgages was willing to leave mortgage advisers in no doubt about how they view the current market. At the start of the year most of the lenders and economists we spoke to were pptimistically hoping by the middle of 2008 the mortgage market might heat up again. While the sun may have come out there is no question in the minds of most industry experts we talk to today that the UK mortgage market is as frosty as the north pole at the moment. Most are not expecting a thaw until the start of 2009, let alone a heatwave.

Advisers hope some of the lenders that have had to step back from the market at the moment will return. They question what the harm is to these companies in discussing what it will take for them to come back. If it takes a return to the days of mortgage funding being easily available from investment houses again then perhaps some lenders should simply warn advisers looking for a warm embrace from them anytime soon may be left out in the cold and disappointed for quite a while longer.

Emma Ann Hughes is editor of Mortgage Adviser