Housing minister commits to market reform
The Government will publish details about reforming the housing market this year, housing minister Matthew Pennycook has confirmed.
Details about how the homebuying and selling process will be reformed will be announced this year, the housing minister has confirmed.
The comments by the housing minister Matthew Pennycook (main picture) were made in response to a Commons question from the Liberal Democrat MP Pippa Heylings, about the “prevalence of gazundering in the residential property market”.
She asked the minister about bringing forward legislative and regulatory measures to protect buyers and sellers from last-minute price reductions prior to the exchange of contracts.
Pennycook responded, saying: “Subject to the outcomes of the analysis being undertaken, we will publish a roadmap setting out further details of our reforms later this year.”
We will publish a roadmap setting out further details of our reforms later this year.”
His comments follow the publication last October by the Government of two consultations.
Both consultations, which closed on 29 December 2025, proposed significant changes to the transaction process.
These include binding conditional contracts at an early stage and mandatory upfront property information at the point of listing.
Clear guidance
Victoria Latham, Deputy Director for Housing at MHCLG and chair of the Digital Property Market Steering Group, spoke about the reforms in November last year.
She said that she wanted clear guidance on upfront information and a published roadmap in place within the next year.
Latham, speaking at a Santander event highlighting its research into the homebuying chain, cautioned against trying to fix everything at once.
She said the priority was clarity of direction, with reform delivered in stages that gave the industry time to adapt.
The Santander resesarch found that a quarter of British adults who have attempted to buy a property have experienced a fall-through, and that these failed transactions cost the economy some £1.5billion a year.
The pain of moving also means that nearly a third of those who have moved home previously are put off trying it again, particularly as each failed attempt costs movers £1,240 on average.
I hope Matthew Pennycook and the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government the forthcoming roadmap takes into account not only where we are today, but how we got here.
Because over the past two decades the legal and property landscape has changed significantly. We have seen lender panel consolidation, the introduction of ABS structures, increasing market concentration, the growth of volume conveyancing models, expanding compliance requirements, digitalisation, new regulatory frameworks and changing consumer expectations.
Each of these developments was introduced with a particular objective in mind. Yet I am not aware of any comprehensive review that has brought together and assessed the cumulative impact of these changes on transaction times, fall-through rates, complaints, claims, consumer outcomes and professional practice.
The legal services market is no longer a homogeneous sector. It now encompasses a broad spectrum of business models, ranging from traditional professional client service models to process-driven, retail-style service models. If we are serious about evidence-based reform, we should understand how complaints, claims, delays and consumer outcomes are distributed across that spectrum.
We hear a great deal about proposed solutions. Digital identity, upfront information, reservation agreements, property logbooks and platform-based systems all have their advocates. But before prescribing solutions, it is worth ensuring we have correctly diagnosed the problem.
My concern is that everyone is focusing on the visible damp patches of a leaky roof rather than identifying the source of the leaks.
In my opinion, one of the most valuable exercises the sector could undertake would be a data-led review bringing together complaint data, claims data, transaction data and consumer outcomes. Only then can we be confident that future reforms are addressing root causes rather than symptoms. Otherwise, we risk applying patches of hot tar to a roof whose underlying structure has never been properly examined.
Interested to hear the views of colleagues involved in the Home Buying & Selling Council and wider reform discussions.