Can we protect ourselves against property purchases falling through

According to a recent survey carried out by the Conveyancing Association, as many as 200,000 buyers will lose out on homes they had hoped to buy this year. The reason Well, there are several.

Lack of mortgage finance, survey problems, collapsing chains, valuations that are too low, gazumping and sellers backing out at the last minute can all reap havoc for those hoping to buy a home. In fact, some have estimated that failed property purchasers cost consumers about £300m a year. Needless to say, this is not small change we are dealing with here.

These issues have been thrown in to the limelight by a recent glitch in the Clearing House Automated Payments System (CHAPS).

Now, on a normal day, CHAPS will deal with around £277bn - however the Monday before last 2000 home-movers were left in a state (I imagine) of extreme panic as their purchases were delayed until the next day, with no guarantee that these would not reach completion.

Happily, in this case, none of the purchases actually fell through. Should they have done, buyers were likely to have found themselves slammed with an 8% penalty interest fee and back to square one on the hunt for their new home. All-in-all, losing a property can cost between £500 and £4000 in fees.

With a third of purchases at risk of collapse in London alone, the real question is what can you do to protect yourself, should this happen to you

Getting insurance has not, until recently, really been an option - but it is one now.

This said, being a relatively recent development, insurance in this area is still very much a nascent market and certainly won't cover all of the eventualities prospective property buyers might meet, should their purchase fall through. The recent CHAPS incident, for example, would probably not have warranted a payout.

This is, however, a growing market - and one undoubtedly to keep an eye on as the property market continues to grow into 2015.

*Eddie Goldsmith is Chairman of the Conveyancing Association and Senior Partner at Goldsmith Williams