The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government has now published a summary of responses to the call for evidence and set out measures to be taken by the Government to make improvements to the selling and buying process in England. These include:
- Creating a mandatory professional qualification for estate agents
- Encouraging the use of a voluntary reservation agreement for estate agents to help prevent sales falling through and to limit gazumping
- Requiring local searches to be returned within ten working days
- Requiring managing agents and freeholders to provide management information within a set time frame and for a set fee
- Guides to be developed and published so consumers have a better understanding of the conveyancing process
The report acknowledges that there is no ‘silver bullet’ that can fix the process in a single change but ‘there are a number of practical changes, some big and some small, which taken together will make the experience so much better’.