Home » News » EXCLUSIVE: Reservation Agreements move forward as final text is agreed
Regulation & Law

EXCLUSIVE: Reservation Agreements move forward as final text is agreed

Kate Faulkner's Home Buying & Selling Group has worked with a cross-party group of industry representatives to nail down a version of the agreement which is due to be trialled next month.

Nigel Lewis

The government’s plans to introduce Reservation Agreements have taken a step forward after industry consultation group the Home Buying & Selling Group (HBSG) headed up by Kate Faulkner (pictured, above), revealed that the wording for the agreements has been finalised.

Full details of what has been agreed are due to be released in the weeks after the New Year, Faulkner has told The Negotiator.

“Now the document is agreed, we can get cross-sector opinion on whether these agreements are a good idea and that’s going through a research phase which the government is managing,” she says.

As well as work on the government’s ‘How to..’ guides this is the first significant work to come from the HBSG, which is a testing ground for proposed government policies and ideas designed to help make home moving ‘cheaper, faster and less stressful’.

The cross-party nature of the work on Reservation Agreements is crucial; many agents will remember what happened when Labour disastrously tried to bring in HIPs without substantial cooperation from, in particular, estate agents.

Who’s in it?

The HBSG includes 150 cross-sector representatives including from the ministry of housing, estate agencies, portals, mortgage lenders, conveyancers, redress schemes, consumer groups such as the HOA and removals firms and has been drawn together over the past two years.

Faulkner says it is also working on several other areas of the home buying and selling process including government plans for leasehold reform, up-front property information gathering prior to sale, and better education of consumers about the buying process.

“There are loads of complications with leaseholds at the moment and we have a working group looking at that and we’ll an announcement about that soon,” says Faulkner.

Read more about Reservation Agreements.

 

December 6, 2019

What's your opinion?

Please note: This is a site for professional discussion. Comments will carry your full name and company.

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.