UK mortgage approvals in June fell to their lowest level in 15 months as buyers got nervous about the state of the housing market in the run up to the EU referendum.
The number of mortgages approved by British banks last month dropped to 40,103 from May's downwardly revised 41,842, the BBA said.
The British Bankers Association said that the figures showed that mortgage lending had dropped after stamp duty was imposed on second homes and buy-to-let properties, but that it was too early to say if Brexit had also had an impact.
"This could simply be the effects of Stamp Duty which pushed prices artificially high in the early part of the year. It is irresponsible to interpret this as simply a Brexit effect at this stage," Rebecca Harding, chief economist at the BBA, said.
The BBA does not however include mortgage lending by mutually owned building societies, which includes one-third of mortgages.
Business borrowing dropped in June for the first time in 2016, showing that investment decisions were being delayed until after the vote.
Net lending to non-financial businesses fell by £526m in June, the biggest fall since December last year.
While the BBA figures do not include the effects of the referendum, property analysts have shown that demand for housing has slid since the vote.
The number of cuts to asking prices surged by 163 per cent in the 12 days following the referendum, compared to the 12 days ahead of the vote, according to figures from LondRes, a property research firm.
But the post-Brexit discounts have failed to encourage people to buy.
Completions, measured as the day money has been transferred and the purchaser can move in, fell by 18 per cent before the vote on the EU membership.
The numbers were down by 43 per cent compared to a year earlier in London’s 30 most central postal districts.
