Data from a poll ran by Mortgage Solutions has suggested that conveyancing transaction timeframes have not improved since the end of the stamp duty land tax (SDLT) holiday in September.
Introduced to stimulate the market in July 2020, the holiday gave the market a much-needed boost and helped save homeowners as much as £6bn on their transactions.
The end of the holiday brought a sharp rise in transactions as people sought to avoid paying higher rates of SDLT. Naturally, this led to backlogs and delays within the conveyancing process.
A dip in transactions has been seen since then, though the decline is not as sharp as it may have been due to homemovers’ wariness of surging house prices and rising interest rates. The provisional non-seasonally adjusted estimate of UK residential transactions in February 2022 was 96,250, a drop of 20.6% compared with February 2021. This was, however, 15.3% higher than January 2022.
Mortgage Solutions’ poll found that 47% of respondents believed conveyancing timeframes have remained the same since the SDLT rush. More worryingly, another 47% believed that conveyancing timeframes are now longer than they were during the rush. This may be due to the number of transactions rising again and contributing to a worsening backlog.
Despite this, data from GetAgent.co.uk found that the average time to sell a home over the last six months currently sits at 248 days, down from an average of 306 days during the previous six months – a drop of 58 days.
Have your say in the Mortgage Solutions poll here.
