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Last Updated: August 11th, 2026
Buying a home in England and Wales takes longer than it used to, and too many sales never reach the finish line at all. In June 2026 the government published its home buying and selling reform roadmap, setting out how it intends to change that. The headline proposal is a sales pack that has to be prepared before a property is even listed, followed in time by contracts that become binding much earlier in the process. If you are planning to move in the next few years, these reforms will affect how you buy and sell. Here is what has actually been announced, what is still to come, and what it means for you in practice.
The roadmap opens with an uncomfortable set of figures. Once an offer has been accepted, it now takes around 120 days on average to reach completion, and the overall journey is roughly 60% longer than it was in 2007. Around one in three sales falls through, which the government estimates costs sellers in the region of £400 million every year, with the wider cost to the economy put at up to £1.5 billion.
The roadmap identifies several root causes. Key information arrives late, or inconsistently, or not at all. There are no clear minimum standards for property agents. Commitments made early in a transaction are weak, so it remains easy for either side to walk away after the other has already spent money on searches, surveys and legal fees. The same information is gathered repeatedly by different parties. And a great deal of the process is still manual and paper based.
Anyone who has been through it will recognise the pattern. Long property chains magnify every delay, and a single problem uncovered late can unravel several linked transactions at once. Our guide to how long it really takes to sell a house sets out where the current timeline tends to stretch.
The central reform is a mandatory sales pack, prepared before a property goes on the market. The idea is straightforward. Rather than a buyer making an offer, instructing a solicitor and then discovering a problem six weeks later, the significant information about the property would be available from the moment they see the listing.
The government has set out what it expects a sales pack to contain. The list is subject to further development, but as things stand it is anticipated to include:
Sellers would keep overall responsibility for making sure the pack is prepared, with individual professionals responsible for their own part of it. Conveyancers would gather and verify the legal and title information, and surveyors would handle the condition report. In other words, much of what a buyer’s solicitor currently chases after an offer is accepted would be assembled in advance instead.
Two of those items are worth expanding on, because they already cause problems. Ordinary conveyancing searches routinely reveal planning history, drainage arrangements and local risks that change how a buyer feels about a property, yet they are usually ordered weeks after an offer has been accepted. Likewise, restrictions on the title are often the last thing a buyer learns about, which is why our guide to property covenants in England is one of the questions we are asked about most often.
The second major reform is a move towards earlier commitment. At present neither party is legally bound until contracts are exchanged, which is typically some weeks or months after an offer is accepted. That gap is what allows a buyer to be gazumped by a higher offer, or a seller to be gazundered by a last minute reduction.
Under the proposals, a binding conditional contract would be entered into much earlier, potentially once an offer is accepted. It would set out clear terms both sides agree to meet, and a party who withdrew without a valid reason would face a financial penalty. The government has been clear that this legislation will only be brought into force after sales packs are embedded, on the logical basis that nobody should be asked to commit before they have the information they need.
It is worth being realistic about what this would and would not fix. A binding conditional contract is conditional, so genuine problems, such as a failed mortgage application or a serious defect discovered on survey, would still allow a party to withdraw. What it targets is the withdrawal made for no good reason after everyone else has spent money. If you are currently in a transaction, the rules have not changed, and our guide on what to do if your purchase falls through after exchange still applies.
One part of the roadmap is not a future reform at all. The government will publish non statutory guidance on material information later in 2026, but the underlying legal duty already exists under the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024. That Act prohibits traders from omitting material information, or presenting it in a way that is unclear, untimely or obscure. In a property context, the responsibility falls largely on estate agents to put the relevant information in front of buyers at the earliest opportunity.
The indicative list being developed for that guidance is long, and it covers much of what buyers ask us about: price, council tax, tenure and lease length, ground rent and service charges, heating type, broadband and mobile coverage, parking, rights and easements, flood risk, construction type, known issues such as damp, subsidence, asbestos or Japanese knotweed, building safety defects, listed status or conservation area restrictions, planning permission, and whether the property sits in a coalfield or former mining area. That last point matters locally, given the mining history across parts of Greater Manchester and Cheshire.
The practical takeaway for sellers is that a listing which quietly leaves out an awkward detail is not clever marketing. It is a compliance risk for the agent and a fall through risk for you.
The roadmap also commits to a significant digital shift. Property logbooks would hold a home’s documents in one place and travel with the property between owners. Digital identity verification and electronic signatures would cut duplication, and secure data sharing would let professionals pass trusted information between each other rather than requesting it again from scratch. The government has also committed to completing its Local Land Charges programme by 2028 and to developing a fully digital geospatial land register by 2035.
There is a fraud angle here too. Better verified identity checks make it harder for someone to impersonate an owner, which is one of the scenarios we cover in our guide on how to protect yourself from property fraud. Digital ID will not remove the need for care with money and instructions, but it does strengthen the checks at the start of a transaction.
Sellers of flats and homes on managed estates will be interested in one specific commitment. Leasehold sales are frequently held up because the information needed to sell sits with a freeholder or managing agent who is slow to provide it, and who charges heavily for it when they do. The government intends to use powers under the Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act 2024 to impose firm caps on those fees and on turnaround times, and to introduce a standardised framework for requesting the information.
That sits alongside the wider programme of leasehold change already under way. If you own or are buying a flat, our explainers on the Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act and on commonhold and the 2026 reforms cover the direction of travel in more detail.
This is where it pays to read carefully, because very little of the roadmap takes effect immediately. The government has set out three broad phases.
So the mandatory elements, the sales pack and the binding contract, require primary legislation that has not yet been introduced. Nothing about your legal obligations as a buyer or seller has changed today. What has changed is the clear direction of travel, and the fact that parts of it can be adopted voluntarily right now.
On the projected benefits, the government estimates average net savings of around £710 for first time buyers and around £400 for home movers, with final sellers seeing net costs rise by roughly £310, offset by a far better chance of the sale completing. It expects fall through rates to drop from one in three to one in seven, and transaction times to shorten by around four weeks for buyers and two weeks for sellers. Those are projections rather than guarantees, but they show what the reforms are aiming at.
You do not have to wait for legislation to benefit from the thinking behind it. The single most useful step a seller can take is to instruct a conveyancer before the property goes on the market rather than after an offer comes in. The government has explicitly described this as good practice, and it is the reason a great deal of legal information is currently unavailable upfront.
In practical terms, instructing early means your title is reviewed, your property information forms are completed, missing paperwork is tracked down and awkward points are resolved while you are still waiting for viewings, rather than while an anxious buyer waits for answers. If a guarantee is missing or an old extension has no sign off, you would far rather know in week one than in week eight. Our guide on when you should instruct a conveyancing solicitor explains the timing, and our advice on preparing your home for sale covers the practical side.
If you are buying, the message is to read listings closely and ask questions early. Where information is missing from a listing, ask for it before you commit to a survey. Our guide to the different types of homebuyer survey will help you decide what level of inspection is appropriate for the property you have found.
Reform of this scale takes years to arrive, but the habits that make transactions run smoothly are available today. At Gorvins Residential, our conveyancing team acts for buyers and sellers across Stockport, Manchester and the wider North West, and we are happy to be instructed by sellers before a property is listed so that the legal groundwork is done in advance.
We will review your title, prepare your paperwork, flag the issues most likely to worry a buyer and explain each stage in plain English. You can read more about what a conveyancer does for the seller, or work through the conveyancing process step by step.
If you are thinking about moving this year and want to get ahead of the paperwork rather than chase it, get in touch with Gorvins Residential on 0161 930 5350. We will tell you exactly what we need and how quickly we can get your sale ready.
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