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City high-flyers are struggling to obtain mortgages for multi-million pound property purchases as banks show a greater reluctance to lend on future bonuses.

Mortgage brokers have seen a number of applications from wealthy clients returned, which they believe weeks ago would have been approved without fuss. Lenders have also reneged on loans that had already been agreed.

Banks are reining in their lending criteria as concerns grow that City bonuses could fall next year following the credit markets crisis. Recent forecasts have pointed to a 10-15 per cent decline in payments.

"People on higher incomes with great future earnings potential are getting caught up in the credit tightening," said David Stubbs, an economist at the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors. "Lenders are demanding higher deposits even in some instances when they have approved the loan."

Jonathan Cornell, technical director of Hamptons International Mortgages, said: "Lenders are getting more nervous about offering 'supersize' loans to investment bankers. Applications that would have happily sailed through two or three months ago are being looked at more carefully."

Banks, which have increasingly been willing to lend large sums on the back of one strong bonus year, could start to demand a longer track record of rising bonuses. It is understood that Woolwich and Intelligent Finance are among those taking a more careful approach to lending on bonuses..

The tightening of credit could further stall house prices in an already cooling London market. Bonus money has been a huge factor in the strong growth of property prices in London and the south-east.

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