Communities
Secretary Sajid Javid has launched a call for evidence on making the home
buying process cheaper, faster and less stressful for those involved.
As part of a
continued drive to make the housing market work better, the Government wants to
hear from everyone with an interest in home buying including estate agents,
solicitors and mortgage lenders.
It aims to ensure
that it address issues across the whole sector, from ways to tackle gazumping
and reduce time wasting to increase commitment to a sale.
Views will be taken
on:
- Gazumping – Buyers are
concerned about gazumping, with sellers accepting a higher offer from a
new buyer, we will look at ways this could be tackled.
- Building trust &
confidence - Mistrust between parties is one of the biggest issues faced,
we want to look at schemes including ‘lock-in agreements’. 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, we
want to increase confidence in the housing chain
- 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, but the buying process is too slow, costing time
and money so we’re looking for innovative digital solutions including
making more data available online
Communities
Secretary Sajid Javid said: "We want to help everyone have a good quality
home they can afford, and improving the process of buying and selling is part
of delivering that. Buying a home is one of life’s largest investments, so if
it goes wrong it can be costly. That’s why we’re determined to take action to
make the process cheaper, faster and less stressful.
"This can help
save people money and time so they can focus on what matters – finding their
dream home. I want to hear from the industry on what more we can do to tackle
this issue."
The announcement
will build on recent proposals to cut out abuses of leasehold, protections for
renters and a crackdown on unfair managing agents, now we are looking at
modernising the home buying process.
The Housing White
Paper set out plans to fix the broken housing market, getting the right homes
built in the right places and measures to improve affordability and protections
for renters and home purchasers.
