Property transactions are now taking in excess of 120 days from an offer being accepted and the property sold subject to contract and actually completing.
Prop tech company View My Chain have tracked the average time it takes to complete each stage in the process in the hope of finding solutions to reduce inefficiencies and speed up the home buying and selling process.
Ordering searches took an average of 23 days after the property was classed as sold subject to contract with the average local authority taking 10.2 days; culminating in a 33.2 day wait time for the search process to complete.
This is if everything runs at an average pace. Unfortunately, a third of local authorities are still struggling to return local searches within the Government imposed guideline of 10 working days.
In the current climate, a mere 68.5% of local authorities are meeting a ten working day deadline for September and October.
Whilst the vast majority (84%) were able to return searches with 15 working days, too many searches were delayed beyond this extended timeframe, slowing the process down further.
38 days were needed for enquiries to be completed and the formalities ready for exchange. 38 days were also needed for the mortgage application to be processed and offered.
Research conducted by IRN asked respondents to consider the ways the conveyancing process, in particular, could be improved. 40% wanted to make a transaction legally binding at the property sold subject to contract stage.
39% of respondents were looking for a cultural shift to take place with property defects becoming the responsibility of the buyer to uncover rather than the seller to reveal. Over a third were also looking to embrace property logbooks as a way of reducing sections of the home buying and selling process.
Sohail Rashid, founder and Chief Executive of View My Chain, commented:
“One of the biggest changes needed in the current process is for sales progression to be managed at a chain level rather than just individual transactions. We all know that the path from SSTC to exchange of contracts doesn’t always run smoothly.
“There is a lack of transparency and certainty in the process which leads to additional delays and frustrations. Our mission is to remove this by allowing all parties involved in the sale and purchase to access data such as the length of chain, listing status, searches ordered, searches delivered and mortgage applications.”
Does the current home buying and selling process need to become more efficient? Are there realistic and achievable solutions to reducing the time it takes to complete a residential transaction?
