Further evidence of an upturn in housing market activity as the summer began has come from new figures released by the UK's tax authority.

In total, 75,000 UK residential properties costing more than £40,000 were sold in June, an increase of 15% on the previous month, HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) said.

It was evidence of the highest level of activity for a year, but the figures are still much lower than those seen for most of the past 10 years.

Seasonal factors - the idea people are more likely to move house in summer - were also shown by the HMRC data to play a key part in the rise.

Other figures, published on Monday, show that the total amount of money paid out in home loans in the UK rose sharply in June.

But the Council of Mortgage Lenders said that the rise to £12.3 billion in June from £10.5 billion a month before mostly reflects the seasonal factors.

The HMRC provisional figures also shed light on the usual buoyancy in the housing market at this time of year.

When seasonal factors are stripped out, 65,000 sales were completed during June, up from a revised figure of 63,000 in May.

This seasonally-adjusted total was the highest seen since October 2008, yet still well down on the 140,000 seen in June 2007 before the housing market crash.

Less volatile quarterly figures from the HMRC showed that property transactions rose from 141,000 in the first three months of the year to 198,000 in the second quarter of 2009.

The seasonally-adjusted figure of 191,000 was almost identical to the third quarter of 2008, and higher than the subsequent two quarters.

Copyright © Press Association 2009