Reforms “will push conveyancing fees down by over 20%”

---

Conveyancing: Upfront information at heart of proposals

Conveyancing fees should fall by over 20% as a result of a streamlined process and other changes to the home-buying regime announced yesterday, the government has claimed.

The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) said the first step to improving the conveyancing system would be streamlining anti-money laundering rules so buyers only had to undergo one check in a transaction.

As we reported yesterday, the government unveiled a blueprint to reform the home-buying and selling system, including mandatory upfront property information, that it said would save reduce the time between instruction and completion by a month.

The detail was in a consultation paper issued later in the day, which said average conveyancing costs, currently around £1,540 for buyers and £930 for sellers, “are expected to fall as competition increases, with variable costs reducing by £340 for buyers and £250 for sellers” – drops of 22% and 27% respectively.

It said: We propose streamlining and simplifying conveyancing to ensure that consumers and professionals do not face unnecessary delays and duplication.

“We suggest beginning this process by streamlining AML checks so that consumers do not face repeated checks during a single transaction. We could also explore opportunities to support AI conveyancing technology to save conveyancers time.”

The MHCLG wanted consumers to have more support when it comes to choosing services as well.

“The available information can be overwhelming or difficult to make sense of, leaving consumers with a poor understanding of how to assess whether a particular conveyancer or estate agent offers the right service for their needs.”

It proposed exploring options for publishing transparent information on estate agents and conveyancers, indicating things like professional specialisms (such as local expertise, leasehold), performance (for example, speed and quality of service), and process (“for example, do they support digital practices such as providing a digital property pack or logbook?”).

“Not only would this support consumers to choose the appropriate services, it would also provide the opportunity to compare services through a trusted source and ensure consumers are paying a fair price.

“Existing support services of this sort have been shown to save consumers an average of £490 per transaction.”

Another measure could be a charter setting out “the simple steps property professionals and consumers can follow to help transactions proceed efficiently”, such as sellers gathering upfront property information and conveyancers sharing information “promptly” with lenders.

“This could be accompanied by an accreditation system which indicates professional services that are abiding by the principles in the charter so consumers can identify quality services.”

A key reason for inefficiencies in the system at the moment “is that consumers and professionals do not have access to the right information at the right time”, the consultation said. “Progress is further hampered by the lack of digitalisation across the process, with many steps still reliant on paperwork and disconnected systems.”

The MHCLG cited a recent poll that showed only 2% of home movers believed they had received sufficient information prior to offer.

“In the future sellers and estate agents could take responsibility for ensuring comprehensive information is available at the point of listing,” it said. “As a first step, we are supporting estate agents to meet their legal responsibilities on material information by consulting on how material information should be presented in property listings alongside this consultation.

“We are interested in introducing a mandatory requirement for sellers to work with conveyancers and surveyors to carry out searches and a property condition assessment prior to listing.

“We recognise this would represent a significant change, so it would not happen immediately. We would work with industry to understand how and when this should be introduced.”

The MHCLG acknowledged that previous initiatives, such as home information packs, faced challenges around trust, reliance and outdated information.

“Our approach would address these issues by drawing data from trusted sources, underpinned by clear standards, and updated as needed.”

Ways to do this could include “leveraging real-time sources”, for example from HM Land Registry; free refreshes from search providers; and setting standard validity periods, for example six months for searches.

The consultation laid out plans for a minimum standard for data provenance and also making digital property packs “a standard feature” of transactions.

“To support consistency and consumer confidence, we would explore mandating a standardised core data set for all digital packs, linked to the unique property reference number and Land Registry records.

“Packs must also be interoperable, integrating via APIs with conveyancing platforms, local authority systems, retrofit tools, and planning applications to enable live data and seamless transactions.”

The MHCLG said it wanted to see a code of practice setting out the minimum standards expected of all residential property agents and extending proposals released in July to introduce mandatory minimum qualifications for managing agents and estate managers to estate and lettings agents.

The consultation said conditional binding contracts between sellers and buyers – with the party breaking it having to pay a financial penalty – could reduce the number of transactions falling through.

But greater use of binding agreements “would need to follow the introduction of comprehensive upfront information”.

The consultation also canvassed methods of ensuring that freeholders and managing agents provide sales information without the delays or inflated fees often seen at the moment.

It predicted that buyers could expect transactions to move around four weeks faster, with fall-throughs reduced from one in three transactions to one in seven, saving consumers around £255m a year. The average time spent on a transaction for sellers should fall by two weeks.

First-time buyers would be expected to save around £710 per transaction, while home movers could save £400.

Sellers would face increased upfront costs of £310 due to upfront information but would benefit from a more likely sale.

At the same time, making surveys a routine part of the process would increase survey spending from £38 to £380 on average, raising fixed costs for sellers to around £710.

“While this represents a shift in how costs are distributed, the outcome is more transparent, reliable, and efficient system overall,” the MHCLG said.