Senior solicitor Stephen Larcombe, writing on behalf of the Conveyancing Task Force, shares a critique of what he says is “a seductive but fundamentally flawed” comparison with the UK’s housing market.
As government attention turns once again to ‘fixing’ the homebuying process, a familiar idea has resurfaced: that the UK should emulate Norway by mandating extensive upfront information and requiring contracts to be signed before a single estate agent viewing takes place. It is an attractive narrative—tidy, confident, and apparently proven overseas. But it is also a narrative built on a series of false equivalences.
The Norwegian system is not a scalable template for the UK. It is a product of a different legal culture, a different market structure, and a different allocation of professional risk. To import it wholesale would not modernise the UK system; it would destabilise it. The comparison fails and policymakers should resist the temptation to legislate by analogy.
A market 10 times smaller cannot be a meaningful comparator
Norway’s property market is roughly one‑tenth the size of the UK’s. That is not a footnote; it is the starting point for any serious policy analysis. A smaller market means fewer transactions, fewer chains, and far less systemic complexity. It means a more homogenous housing stock, more consistent regional practices, and a more uniform professional culture. It means that reforms which appear smooth in Norway may buckle under the sheer volume and diversity of the UK market.
Scale is not a cosmetic difference. It is the difference between a system that can absorb procedural front‑loading and one that cannot. The UK’s 1.2 million annual transactions are not going to behave like Norway’s 100,000 simply because the government wishes them to.
The Alienation Act reverses caveat emptor, with consequences the UK has not begun to consider
Much of the enthusiasm for the Norwegian model overlooks the legal foundation on which it rests: the Alienation Act, which reverses caveat emptor and places extensive liability on sellers and surveyors.
In Norway, sellers face heightened exposure for non‑disclosure, surveyors carry professional risk far beyond what UK surveyors currently accept, and the legal test for misrepresentation is materially different from English law.
Transplanting the outputs of the Norwegian system without transplanting its legal architecture is not reform – it is incoherence. It would create a hybrid regime in which sellers are expected to provide Norwegian‑style information packs while still operating under English misrepresentation law, which was never designed to support that burden.
The result would be predictable: more disputes, more claims, more professional indemnity pressure, and more consumer confusion.
UK property lawyers are not Norwegian Eiendomsmeglere
The Norwegian system relies on a single, licensed professional – the eiendomsmegler – who blends the functions of estate agent, lawyer and adviser. The UK system is deliberately different. It separates roles to preserve independence, reduce conflicts of interest, and maintain professional scrutiny.
Calls to ;do what Norway does’ ignore that UK conveyancers do not control marketing, etate agents do not control legal advice, and surveyors do not operate under Norwegian‑style statutory duties.
The UK system is not broken because it is different. It is different because it reflects centuries of legal development and a constitutional preference for independent professional checks.
Professional bodies are already warning against misapplied comparisons
The Conveyancing Task Force, the Property Lawyers Alliance and numerous senior practitioners have already raised concerns – publicly and repeatedly – about the risks of importing Norwegian practices into a fundamentally different legal ecosystem.
Their concerns are not protectionist, they are structural. Upfront information is valuable, but only when it is accurate, proportionate, and legally coherent. Forcing contract signing before marketing would invert the UK’s buyer‑led process and create new liabilities without solving existing delays. The Norwegian model is not ‘faster’ because of its information pack; it is faster because the entire legal and professional framework is built around it.
To ignore these warnings is to treat the UK system as a blank slate. It is not.
Pre‑viewing contract signing is culturally and procedurally incompatible with the UK market
The proposal that contracts should be signed before a single viewing is not merely ambitious – it is fundamentally misaligned with how UK consumers behave.
In the UK, buyers choose homes emotionally, not transactionally. iewings are exploratory, not commitments, and chains are common, discretionary, and interdependent.
Requiring contract signing before marketing would not accelerate transactions – it would suppress them. It would deter sellers, confuse buyers, and create a procedural rigidity that the UK market – dynamic, discretionary, and chain‑driven – cannot absorb.
Reform must be rooted in systemic fit, not international imitation
None of this is an argument against reform. The UK system needs clarity, enforceability, and better‑structured information. But reform must be grounded in:
- The realities of English and Welsh property law.
- The professional roles that safeguard independence.
- The scale and diversity of the UK market.
- The need for proportionate, enforceable duties.
- The importance of avoiding unintended liability shifts.
Norway’s system works in Norway because it is Norwegian. It is not a universal template, it is a product of its legal culture, its market size, and its professional structures.
The UK should learn from international examples, not copy them.
The government’s home buying reform agenda deserves ambition, but it must be matched with legal realism. The Norwegian model is not a shortcut to a faster, simpler UK system – it is a fundamentally different system built on foundations the UK does not share.
Rather than import foreign solutions, the UK should build a solution that is coherent, enforceable and proportionate, and one which respects the system it seeks to improve.
About the author
Stephen is a senior solicitor with extensive experience in agricultural, commercial and residential conveyancing, alongside environmental, planning and rural law. His career spans major land transactions, successful community planning challenges, and speaking engagements from diplomatic events to university audiences. A mentor to junior lawyers and recipient of the 2025 Modern Law Lifetime Achievement Award for Conveyancing, he also serves as chair of The Property Lawyers Alliance and as a co‑governor of a SEND school.
