Rising house prices and increased availability to higher loan-to-value (LTV) lending has meant just 5 per cent of mortgaged households were unable to pass tighter lending criteria in September, down from 9 per cent a year ago.

Countrywide said, in the last year, just over 400,000 households have found themselves no longer mortgage prisoners and as a result have been able to cut their mortgage payments.

In London and the South East, less than 0.1 per cent of households are in a position where they do not have sufficient equity to remortgage.

Nigel Stockton (pictured), financial services director at Countrywide, said: “This fall has been driven by both rising house prices but also improved access to credit from lenders.

“While a lender typically required a household looking to remortgage to hold equity of at least 15 per cent immediately after 2008, since the latter part of 2013 we’ve seen this figure fall to 10 per cent.”

A remortgaging household in 2014 saw their monthly payments fall by an average of £115 per month, equivalent to 12 per cent of the total monthly mortgage payment.

The average remortgaging household secured an interest rate 1.1 per cent below their existing deal, while households coming off longer fixed rate mortgages saw their mortgage payment fall considerably more.