In total, 3,017 new homes were registered during the period, compared to 2,759 in 2013, with overall year to date registrations also marginally up on last year.

NHBC regional director Malcolm MacLeod said: “Scotland has enjoyed a promising quarter with overall registrations up 9 per cent on the same period last year. Although the principle driver for this increase has been the private sector we continue to work with the social housing sector protecting the significant investment they make in delivering new homes.

“The referendum may have unsettled some prospective buyers but it is likely that the market will now settle down and the recent announcement on the Land and Building Transaction Tax coupled with the imminent availability of the next tranche of Help top Buy funding will likely to lead to registrations increasing.”

Overall UK figures for Q3 2014 reveal that new home registrations have increased 8 per cent on the same period last year with the private sector continuing to be the main driver of growth. These figures represent the highest year to date figures and the highest Q3 figures since 2007.

In total for the UK, 36,343 new homes were registered with NHBC between July and September this year (28,468 private sector; 7,875 public sector), compared to 33,573 (24,984 private sector; 8,589 public sector) for the same period in 2013. This represents a 14 per cent increase for the private sector, with the public sector still under-performing when compared to last year’s figures.

However, NHBC anticipates that public sector registrations will begin to grow again as the next phase of the Government’s Affordable Housing Programme has recently been allocated.