The growth in legacy income has slowed to 4.1 per cent in the final financial quarter of the year to September 2015, continuing to reflect trends in the UK housing market.

According to the latest data provided by Legacy Foresight, “cooling house prices and jittery stock markets” have continued to slow income growth rates in 2015 “after last year’s (2014) rapid recovery”.

For the year ending December 2014 legacy income growth was 9.9 per cent, yet this has fallen to just 4.1 per cent for the most recent financial quarter of 2015.

The 76 Legacy Monitor Consortium members received combined legacy income of £1.26bn from 50,300 notifications in the year to September 2015.

Legacy Foresight said that this rise in notifications came from a “surge of deaths” in winter driven by a “severe cold snap and a high incidence of influenza amongst elderly people”.

Of the 76 member organisations, 43 saw their income rise while 33 saw it fall over this period. 

The Legacy Monitor Consortium was set up in 2008 to track legacy trends. This year the 76 charities taking part account for more than half the overall legacy market.