Plans include upfront property information, earlier binding agreements and digital tools to speed up transactions
The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government has unveiled reforms to the homebuying and selling process aimed at cutting delays, reducing costs and stopping more transactions from falling through.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer said getting the keys to a home was one of the biggest moments in a person’s life but that the current system too often turned the process “into a battle”. He said the reforms would “bring this outdated process into the modern age” by saving people time and money and giving buyers and sellers greater certainty. The reforms would require sellers and estate agents to provide key information upfront, subject to legislation planned later in Parliament.
The reforms also include digital property logbooks and sales packs, intended to allow trusted information to be shared securely between professionals and accessed by buyers and sellers in real time. The government said it would also support digital identity checks, electronic signatures and AI-assisted conveyancing to reduce duplication, fraud risk and delays.
Earlier binding agreements are also planned to stop parties from walking away months into negotiations without a legitimate reason. Binding conditional contracts could make a transaction legally binding much earlier, potentially once an offer is accepted, with financial penalties if a party withdraws without a valid reason or fails to meet agreed obligations. The government said the change would not take effect until sales packs had been embedded. It will work with the industry on fair penalty levels, exception clauses and dispute-resolution processes before introducing the model.
Ministers said the reforms could cut buying times by around four weeks and save first-time buyers an average of £650. The government said the average home purchase currently takes around 120 days, while one in three sales falls through, costing sellers around £400m a year and the wider economy up to £1.5bn annually.
A new code of practice for estate agents is expected later this year, with a consultation from 2027 on estate-agent qualifications and expanded digital tools. Comprehensive legislation requiring sales packs, binding contracts and digital systems is planned by the end of this Parliament.
Housing secretary Steve Reed said buying or selling a home should not be “a drawn-out nightmare of delays, hidden costs, and failed deals”. Chancellor Rachel Reeves said collapsed deals were bad for buyers and “bad for the economy too”, adding that the reforms would cut delays and costs while making the process quicker and more reliable.
Mark Evans, vice president of the Law Society of England and Wales, said the government’s roadmap was “rightly ambitious” because lasting improvement required reform of the system as a whole. He said the proposals were a positive step towards a more efficient system with better-informed consumers and higher standards for estate agents. Evans added that implementation would be critical. He said solicitors play a key role in homebuying and selling and were well placed to assess how the proposals would work in practice.
Sheila Kumar, chief executive of the Council for Licensed Conveyancers, said the CLC “strongly supports” the reforms because they would deliver better outcomes for consumers and professionals. She said digitalised upfront information, particularly when combined with reservation agreements, could improve confidence in transactions and allow buyers and sellers to agree a completion date much earlier.
Kumar said that “speed to confidence” was the prize of years of industry work and that the roadmap had the potential to make homebuying and selling simpler, faster and more certain. The government said the phased approach would give the sector time to adapt while delivering improvements as quickly as possible.