Why the Home Moving Process Needs Reform – and What’s Changing

Buying and selling a home should be one of life’s most exciting moments — but too often it’s slow, uncertain, and stressful.
On average, a property transaction now takes 120 days from offer to completion, a figure that’s risen by 60% since 2007. Around one in three sales still fall through, costing consumers an estimated £400 million a year in wasted fees. For professionals, that means lost time, broken chains, and frustrated clients.

The government’s new Home Buying and Selling Reform Consultation, launched in October 2025, is an opportunity to change that — and the Home Buying and Selling Council (HBSC) is calling on everyone involved in home moving to take part.

A Shared Vision for Change

The consultation sets out a vision for a faster, fairer, and more digital home moving system that benefits both consumers and professionals. Its proposals include:

• Requiring upfront property information before a property is listed, so buyers can make informed offers.

• Creating digital property logbooks — verified, secure records of key information about every home.

• Professionalising estate agents and others in the sector, through qualifications and codes of practice.

• Simplifying checks and paperwork, reducing duplication, particularly around identity and AML verification.

• Exploring binding conditional contracts to reduce fall-throughs and give buyers and sellers more certainty.

These are areas the HBSC has been working on for years — through initiatives such as the BASPI dataset, Property Logbook standards, and the Digital Property Market Steering Group — to make trusted, verified property data available earlier and more consistently across the chain.

How We Got Here

The HBSC was founded following the last major consultation in 2018, bringing together professionals from across estate agency, conveyancing, surveying, mortgage, and removals sectors — alongside regulators, ombudsmen, and consumer groups.

During the pandemic, this collaboration helped reopen the housing market safely by developing government-endorsed moving guidance. Since then, the Council’s working groups have tested practical solutions, including:

• Reservation agreements to provide commitment early in the process

• Digital identity and logbook standards through DSIT and HMLR partnerships

• Research on consumer experience, identifying where uncertainty and delays arise

• The 26 Actions for Change and the HBSC Pledge — commitments adopted across the industry to improve the process

These projects have provided the evidence base that helped shape the new consultation.

As Kate Faulkner OBE, Chair of HBSC, explains:

“Improving the home buying and selling process requires cooperation between government, industry and consumers. This consultation is the next vital step to deliver long-term reform and one that reflects real experiences from those at the heart of the process.”

Why It Matters

Behind every statistic is a human story — families left waiting for keys, movers working late into the night, or downsizers giving up because it’s all too uncertain. The inefficiencies in our current system create both financial and emotional costs. Reform isn’t about adding bureaucracy; it’s about reducing risk, saving time, and restoring trust.

The government estimates that the proposed changes could cut fall-throughs from one in three to one in seven, and make transactions up to four weeks faster for buyers. That’s good news for everyone — consumers, professionals, and the wider economy.

What Happens Next

The consultation is open until 29 December 2025. The HBSC will be submitting its own response, supported by research and feedback from across the industry — but your input matters too.

Whether you’re a surveyor, agent, conveyancer, lender, or consumer, your views can help shape a home moving system that works better for everyone.

Have Your Say

Take part in the government consultation before 29 December 2025:
Respond now on GOV.UK 

Learn More
Explore the Home Moving Reform Toolkit and see how HBSC is supporting collaboration across the industry.
Visit the Toolkit