Eshalomi: Mandatory qualifications for estate agents
Mandatory upfront information, conditional sale contracts and regulation of estate agents would all help improve the home buying process, MPs have said.
“The current buying and selling process is a painful experience that reduces motivation to move and slows down the housing market,” according to Parliament’s housing, communities and local government committee.
“It risks unnecessary costs for buyers, sellers, other stakeholders, and the wider economy. Reducing these barriers will help encourage more people to move home, increasing day-to-day supply, as well as reduce failed transactions, making the buying and selling process more affordable for everyone.”
It welcomed the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government’s (MHCLG) consultation on home-buying reform, published last October, and looked forward to the government taking “clear action”.
In a letter to housing minister Matthew Pennycook, committee chair Florence Eshalomi, a Labour MP, said she wanted to outline some of the relevant findings from its inquiry into the affordability of home ownership, the report on which is to be published in the coming weeks.
She noted how, according to data from Landmark Information Group, the average time for a buyer from instructing a conveyancer to completing a purchase was 120 days in 2024, 60% longer than in 2007, while for sellers it was 160 days in 2024, 88% longer.
Potential improvements suggested to the committee included standardised search results, such as coal mining or flood history, recorded once on the Land Registry, a single ID check by a reputable source, and a modified version of home information packs.
The committee recommended the MHCLG mandate that certain information required for property transactions be provided upfront.
“This must include information about the property, produced by suitably authoritative providers (surveys prepared by chartered surveyors, for example), and made available by the seller and the seller’s representatives when a property first goes on the market, not later during the buying process.”
England was “unusual internationally” for allowing parties to withdraw from property transactions at any time, Ms Eshalomi noted, and so the committee recommended making them more binding at an earlier stage by means of conditional contracts, “such that both parties are legally bound to a transaction once certain conditions are met”.
She continued: “Failure to follow through on transaction once the conditions are met should lead to financial penalties. Furthermore, MHCLG should investigate other ways of reducing the time gaps between offer and completion.”
On estate agents, Ms Eshalomi recounted the evidence of Beth Rudolf, co-chair of the Home Buying and Selling Council and director of delivery at the Conveyancing Association, who said the current system “rewards agents who do not follow the law regarding providing material information over those agents that do, but that the threat of fines or other enforcement from a regulator would encourage them to improve”.
The committee said MHCLG must introduce a code of practice and mandatory qualification for each type of property agent, including estate agents.
“The code of practice should set out minimum standards for estate agents to abide by, including around the provision of material property information.
“The code of practice and qualification should be overseen by an independent regulator, and MHCLG should work with stakeholders such as Propertymark to design and set up the code of practice and regulator body.
“The regulator should have the ability to enforce adoption of the code of practice through fines or other penalties.”
The committee also called on the MHCLG to set out its assessment of whether the Estate Agents Act 1979 remains fit for purpose or needed updating.
Ms Eshalomi urged a response by the MHCLG by the summer recess on 17 July.
The Conveyancing Task Force, a group of frontline conveyancing professionals set up by the Property Lawyers Alliance, commented that the letter was further evidence of the public “being encouraged to believe that delays stem mainly from outdated processes or insufficient paperwork”.
Spokesman Stephen Larcombe said: “Nobody is arguing against sensible reform. But no amount of extra paperwork or digital process will fix a system if professional supervision, continuity and accountability continue to weaken in parts of the conveyancing sector.
“Conveyancing is not an administrative task. It is a professional legal service requiring judgment, investigation, accountability and experience.”
He said many current reform proposals risked oversimplifying the other causes of delay, such as mortgage complications and lender delays, survey findings requiring renegotiation, leasehold and estate management company issues, “unstable or lengthy” property chains, and increasing legal and regulatory complexity.
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