The Government wants to transform the house buying process to make it 'cheaper, faster and less stressful'. Buying a property could get easier thanks to a continued drive to modernise the housing market.
The Government has pledged to tackle gazumping, reduce time wasting and increase commitment to a sale. Views will be taken from everyone with an interest in home buying including estate agents, solicitors and mortgage lenders:
• Gazumping – Buyers are concerned about gazumping, with sellers accepting a higher offer from a new buyer.
• Building trust and confidence - Mistrust between parties is one of the biggest issues. Although 1 million homes are bought and sold in England each year, around a quarter of sales fall through and hundreds of millions of pounds are wasted.
• Informing customers - How to provide better guidance for buyers and sellers, by encouraging them to gather more information in advance so homes are ‘sale ready’.
• Innovation – You can now search for a home online, so the Government is looking for innovative digital solutions including making more data available online.
The recent announcement will build on recent proposals to cut out abuses of leasehold, protections for renters and a crackdown on unfair managing agents. Recent research sampling more than 2,000 people who have bought or sold a home recently reveals:
• of those that experienced delays, 69% of sellers and 62% of buyers reported stress and worry as a result of the delay
• 46% of sellers had concerns about a buyer changing their mind after making an offer
• 24% of sellers would use a different estate agent if they were to go through the process again; and
• 32% of sellers and 28% of buyers were dissatisfied with the other party’s solicitor
Research from
Which? shows that people find moving house more stressful than having children, as part of research on life events.
The
call for evidence runs for 8 weeks from 22 October.
