Sellers are also feeling the pain of a system that cannot cope. In February 2007, the average sale took 102 days to complete. Now, the process takes 157 days – more than five months.
Hold ups have increased at every stage of the process. The wait time for a mortgage offer has jumped by 26pc in two years, while conveyancing wait times have hit a record high of 59 days.
Red tape has been a major issue, said Mr Brown. The 2014 Mortgage Market Review increased the number of checks and balances needed for every mortgage application. In 2017, the Government also tightened anti-money laundering requirements.
Tom Parkinson, of the Conveyancing Association, a trade body, said the back-and-forth that comes with these extra checks can add weeks to the buying process. The admin has also been dramatically magnified by the rise of the so-called “Bank of Mum and Dad”, he added. For each purchase, far more parties need to be verified.
At the same time, over the years, shrinking fee margins in the conveyancing sector has diminished the workforce, said Mr Brown. The housing market shutdown in 2020 made this worse. “During Covid and the housing market shutdown, a lot of good people were lost from the industry because they were furloughed and they decided to leave and retrain,” said Mr Parkinson.
The Government’s decision to end the housing market shutdown in May 2020 brought a tidal wave of activity just as conveyancers had lost staff and were grappling with the challenges of remote working.
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