Housing market reforms aimed at reducing the costs and time needed to buy and sell houses are carefully welcomed by mortgage and real estate experts.
As part of the government proposals, announced today by housing secretary Steve Reed, sellers and brokers must provide important information about a real estate that is for sale.
This will reduce the work after the sale has been agreed, including searches and surveys. The government said that “hundreds of thousands of first buyers would save £ 710 on average when buying a house.”
It described the proposals as the ‘biggest shock of the home head system in the history of the country’ and said, as well as money, it would save people essential time and energy.
According to the plans, sellers must reduce the condition of the house, give the leasehold costs and provide details of any chains.
Binding contracts would be introduced to prevent people from walking away from agreements after buyers have spent months in negotiations.
It is predicted that this will halve the number of failed transactions, saving money, time and the emotional fallout.
Steve Reed said: “Buying a house should be a dream, not a nightmare. Our reforms will solve the broken system that can concentrate so hard -working people on the next chapter of their lives. Because of our plan for change we bring more money back into the subjects of working people and make a simple dream a simple reality.”
There has been a mixed response to the proposals. Although most professionals welcome the reforms, there were some who needed more convincingly.
Robin Thomas from Recoco Property Search was positive. He said: “After working as a broker for more than 30 years and during the past nine years as a purchasing agent in the West country, I am pleased to see such a long-term initiative that is proposed and hopefully implemented.
“If you buy a car or an electrical device, this information must be available for a buyer from the start. With the most important purchase of people, the same rules should apply.”
But Justin Moy, director of Chelmsford-based EHF mortgagesSpeaking with the newspaper agency, had some doubts. “We have seen all this with the poorly received hips (home information packages) that have been designed to do exactly the same, and failed miserably,” he said.
“Better regulation of real estate agents would be well received by the entire housing sector, but the real problem is currently the economy. This has all the feeling of a ‘bait and link’ tactics to move the eyes of this failed government.”
And Katy Eatenton, mortgage and protection specialist at St. Albans-based lifetime asset managementThe newspapers told: “On paper this sounds great, but the real test will be the implementation and the rollout. No plan survives contact, and this will mainly prove the case in the idiosyncratic and often mysterious property world.”