Leasehold management company delays criticised

Management companies are slowing down leasehold property purchases by taking too much time to deliver necessary information to solicitors, according to the Conveyancing Association (CA).

In a bid to speed up property transactions, members of the CA met with MPs in Westminster last week to suggest changes to the law which will set out a fixed time period for management companies to deliver information and at a set cost.

Approximately 200,000, or one in every five, properties sold in the UK per year are leasehold properties. In these cases, conveyancers must contact the management company or residents’ association in order to obtain the information they require to progress a sale. A recent CA members survey shows that the average time it takes to obtain the necessary information is three weeks, with some cases taking eight, and it costs buyers an average of £350, with some costs exceeding £800.

Eddie Goldsmith, Chairman of the Conveyancing Association, says: ‘Eight weeks can cause huge delays to a conveyancing process, which in turn can cause immense stress for the buyer and seller, drive up costs, and in the worst case scenario, even threaten the sale. It can also have far reaching consequences for the market as delays in one transaction can affect numerous other sellers and buyers if there is a chain involved, causing even more unnecessary stress to countless people.

‘We are asking MPs today to help us change the law to enforce a strict timetable on management companies to hand over the information they are required to, along with a set fee for doing so. Helping to speed up this information gathering process in this way will help to speed up the conveyancing process, leading to quicker and more cost effective house buying process for consumers.’