Buying and selling a home is set to become faster, cheaper, and less stressful under major reforms unveiled today (Friday 19 June) to cut delays, reduce and digitalise paperwork, and stop sales collapsing.   

At a time when families are feeling the squeeze, new changes will cut homebuying times by around four weeks, save first-time buyers an average of £650, and stop the nasty surprises that cost time, money, and heartbreak. This will ensure the chance to own a home isn’t determined by who can afford to take the biggest risk. 

Sellers and estate agents will have to provide key information upfront in ‘sales packs’ at the point of listing. This will set out a home’s condition, leasehold costs, and chain status so buyers can make informed decisions, and property professionals can get to work sooner – while creating a fairer, more transparent process for everyone involved. 

Changes will also see new earlier binding agreements to stop parties walking away months into negotiations without a legitimate reason. This will help to give young people confidence in the system and better plan for their next steps, not put them on hold. 

In addition, a new Code of Practice will raise standards for estate agents, alongside proposals for mandatory qualifications for the sector which could ensure agents are properly equipped to support efficient transactions and rebuild trust in the sector.   

With the average home purchase taking around 120 days, one in three sales falling through costing sellers around £400 million per year, and failed transactions costing the economy up to £1.5 billion every year – these reforms will fix a broken system.  

Prime Minister Keir Starmer said: 

Getting the keys to a home you can call your own is one of the biggest events in anyone’s life. But right now, the system that should provide support instead turns it into a battle, leaving people in limbo and putting that opportunity out of reach. 

We’re turning the page. Our reforms will bring this outdated process into the modern age, saving people time and money, and giving them the certainty they deserve. 

This is about building a stronger, fairer Britain, one that works for the next generation and makes the dream of home ownership a reality for many more hard-working people. 

 

Housing Secretary, Steve Reed said:    

Buying or selling a home should be one of life’s great moments and not a drawn-out nightmare of delays, hidden costs, and failed deals.  

These changes will make the system faster, fairer, and more secure – giving families and first-time buyers the certainty they need all while saving them time and money. 

The Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rachel Reeves said: 

Delays, hidden costs, and deals collapsing at the last minute are not only bad for homebuyers, it’s bad for the economy too. 

Our reforms will cut those delays, cut costs and make the process quicker and more reliable – getting more people on the housing ladder while keeping more money in their pockets.  

We have the right economic plan – getting the housing market moving, building thousands more good-quality homes in every region, and transforming rights for renters.

At the heart of the reforms is a major shift to digital – replacing the outdated paper-based systems with faster, more reliable tools.   

Digital property logbooks and sales packs will allow trusted information to be shared securely between professionals and accessed by buyers and sellers in real-time, cutting out the back-and-forth that cause so many delays.   

The government will also back digital identity checks, electronic signatures and AI-assisted conveyancing to strip out duplication, reduce fraud risk and accelerate transactions from start to finish. Together, these changes will create a modern, end-to-end system where people can track and progress their move more easily.   

Andrew Stanton Analysis

It would be good if those in the know, for example estate agents on the frontline who win and list the inventory that is then offered to the public for sale were actually involved in anything that changes their industry. 

Let’s unpick some of the big brains who commented on improving the present ‘slow boat’ system for the transfer of title, the CEO of Rightmove suggests the Norway version of moving home works, well given Norway has 90,000 property sales annually and the UK has 1.2M and the sale process is different, I am guessing that this is not a useful comparison. 

The idea that having upfront information will be seen by agents as HIP’s revisited and it was universally hated by agents, because 50% of listed stock does not actually get sold by the listing agent, so a lot of work and unnecessary ‘cost.’ And on that word of cost, this mythical £650 being saved by FTB’s who represent 36% of annual buyers, what additional cost is going to be added to the ‘selling’ of property if new reforms come in? 

Also, I am amazed at the lack of fact checking with regard to the lost ‘revenue’ argument that I have heard re-hashed over the decades, we have the figure as £1.5bn quoted above – exactly how was this formulated? Yes 30% of sales fall-through annually but a large amount of these get resold. 

And on making estate agents better regulated? 99% of those in the industry are competent, honest folk, maybe given what we have seen with a certain Housing Secretary evading paying SDLT there should first be better regulation for who holds a cabinet place or becomes an MP. As property sales are delayed not by the unprofessionalism of agents, but by 3,500 conveyancers and solicitors getting 1.2m completed sales through a year, plus dealing with the hundreds of thousands of un-exchanged property transactions not to mention the re-mortgage market.

Here if anywhere is the real weak point of the home buying and selling process, coupled to outdated Land and Property Act which needs an overhaul as it needs to get to grips with a more tokenized approach. 

Given that the present government has failed to deliver on its 1.5M new home delivery, and will be itself in a state of leadership flux, my view is that whilst there is a real need to solve how we buy property, the present good intentions outlined in this press release are likely to be kicked into the long grass especially if a new PM brings in his new cabinet and housing is put in the blender once more. In fact, if you look at Hansard as far back as 1968, they were debating exactly the same thing how to make buying a property easier, there was a Labour government in power then too. 

The present government loves spending cash on consultations and research into various things and then … ‘nothing changes’ it has been the Starmer way, I wonder if Mr Burnham does achieve his goal of being PM if that will change things – my expectation as with these proposed initiatives just much more talk, with new cost being added to process with little return.