The Home Buying and Selling Group (HBSG) is seeking feedback from agents on proposals that it feels will “revolutionise moving home for all involved.”
The Government-backed industry group, established to discuss and suggest housing market reforms, has launched a “home moving roadmap” of reforms that it would like feedback on.
The paper sets out a different way of moving home which the industry can deliver now, including instructing a legal company day one of marketing, or before, financially qualifying buyers before viewings and aiming to move everyone by 1pm on the day of completion.
It also suggests that the Regulation of Property Agents reforms or something similar are introduced, said quality upfront information should be mandated and pushes for a shift to digital identify verification and a move from a paper-led system.
To secure changes, the HBSG said the whole home moving industry needs to come together to agree on what solutions would work ‘on the ground’, test and pilot upfront initiatives, for example property logbooks, property packs or other solutions.
Kate Faulkner, chair of the HBSG, said:“We have worked hard to identify all the issues by working with trade and professional bodies, ombudsman, regulators, and redress schemes from all sectors involved in the home moving process, as well as Government and importantly, practitioners, from small independent companies through to franchises and corporates.
“It’s an incredibly difficult job to secure support and agree on the best way forward for such a diverse industry, but by putting the consumer front and centre, we think we have a roadmap that will work. What we need now is feedback and hopefully support, including testing and piloting new ways of moving home from those that haven’t been involved in the group’s work to date.”
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The right direction.
Nothing regards a mandated gap in-between exchange and completion that I could see in the paper.
Anybody who works on the ground knows how much stress this causes. Indeed it is without doubt the peak of the stress curve for consumers.
Still gazundering goes unaddressed and at a time where it’s return is causing misery.
Moreover the horrific stress incurred by those with exchanges ridiculously close to completion day, often incurring major costs financially as well as emotionally, isn’t discussed.
Everybody who works on the ground, with consumers knows there’s absolutely no good reason why there cannot be a mandated period in-between ex&comp.
There’s no reasoning against that cannot have a hole quickly blown through it.
This was an early aim of the group. It’s a shame those with an interest in maintaining the current stress purely for their own benefit haven’t got on board, and indeed have clearly sought to frustrate a potential change that would have majorly benefitted those who are paying the industries wages.
The consumer
I notice that where this document contains quite definite language regards many points;
Key release time remains an ‘aim’ for 1pm. In fact for the moving day section this document almost insinuates the issue is people being moved out by 1pm. Whereas in the real world, for decades this hasn’t been the issue.
One could argue that ensures the status quo would continue to exist, reading this.
The Law Societies time for completion right now is 1pm.
It could easily be argued that today, Conveyancers will ‘aim’ for 1pm.
Movers (both firms and the public) will only benefit if this language for the stated goal changes to ‘keys will be released by 1pm’.
I’m uncomfortable that the document doesn’t address moving days historic mess caused by conveyancing practices of almost sociopathic diagnosis.
Moreover the language hinting that being moved out by 1pm is an issue. Frankly it’s an insult to the moving industry.
Everybody knows the physical home movers aren’t the problem.
I'm disappointed that BAR (British Association of Removers) have signed off on this language.
Any member of the public reading this would take the read that a common issue is having homes empty by 1pm.
Whereas in fact the issue is with the entire conveyancing process.
Will the million or so who move each year be asked their opinion too? Often I get tech founders coming up with great services for an end user they have rarely come across, maybe start with the general public the 'user' and ask what UX they had, and would like.
Another problem is that unless change gets a government mandate, the vested interests and commercial gatekeepers of a very imperfect system of transferring the title of property from one party to the other will continue. And even when the government sets up 'think tanks' such as the Centre for Data Ethics and Innovation’s (CDEI) advisory board, which was meant to be advising all on Ai, despite there being the brightest minds on the job, after millions of funding it got closed down and failed. Reasons, it got Ai wrong was number one, number two the revolving doors of prime ministers, three after half a decade it had covered very little ground ... and is being overtaken by private industry stuffing Generative Ai into just about everything.
Whilst I fully support the HBSG and know many of the players I think that it will be a large private company that solves the problem of getting sstc to exchange, and like Uber or Amazon sheep the whole industry will change its habits and adopt it. Presently I know of over a dozen such private enterprises globally working on it, both for residential and commercial property assets. The blockers - the legals - the finance - the agents, all set in aspic.
We need the Scottish system on valuations. An accurate valuation decided upon before marketing so its just picking an agent. This will get rid of the over valuing to meet targets, manage sellers expectations and eliminate down valuations. HIPs should come back and be valid 6 months, the problem before was them lasting 12 weeks and lenders insisting on new ones if the property took longer to sell, thus ending up a waste of time and money. Sellers paying for searches shows commitment to sell too, it's just too easy for them to pull out after the buyer has forked out.
If we have the opportunity to change things, please consider the right things to change to make the whole process easier?
Thanks for the feedback, I'm currently collating a list of things that everyone across the industry has raised - it's a long one! Matt, noted on the exchange/completion time. We are trying to get as far as we can as quickly as we can, but I do appreciate its not as much or as fast as you would like.
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