Housing Minister Matthew Pennycook said changes announced today will be a game changer for people looking to buy or sell a house
Labour vowed to overhaul Britain’s “broken housing system” – modernising housebuying in a move that could save people millions.
Housing Minister Matthew Pennycook said changes announced today (SUN) will be a game changer for people looking to buy or sell a house.
Writing for this newspaper, he said: “By harnessing the power of technology, we can make sure fewer property transactions fall-through and follow in the footsteps of Norway where property transactions take just a month on average – not nearly five months as is the case here.”
Under major new plans the government will modernise the way the process works, replacing old-fashioned paperwork with digital systems that allow professionals to share property information.
Currently, information like building control and highways information is mostly paper-based or recorded in formats that can’t be read by modern computers.
And there are no set systems to link up and share data, leading to more delays.
Further new systems will allow buyers and sellers to prove their identity digitally, slashing the time it takes to put a sale through – and reducing the number of deals that collapse.
Currently, fall throughs affect 300,000 sales – one in three each year – costing people around £400 million a year.
Meanwhile, ministers will bring forward plans to improve the lives of leaseholders, allowing more of them to take control of their buildings more easily, giving them power over how their service charges are spent.
They will also remove the requirement for leaseholders to cover the legal fees of their freeholder when taking control of their building – potentially saving them up to £3,000 for the most costly claims, and reducing the incentive for landlords to obstruct the process.
“Our modernisation of the system sits alongside further reforms to improve the lives of leasehold homeowners across the country, allowing them to more easily and cheaply take control of the buildings they live in and clamp down on unreasonable or extortionate charges,” Mr Pennycook said.
“These reforms build on the government’s Plan for Change to deliver higher living standards and 1.5 million safe and decent homes in this Parliament, and our ongoing efforts to protect leaseholders suffering from unfair and unreasonable practices as we work to end the feudal leasehold system for good.”
‘We’ll fix Britain’s broken housing system’
By Matthew Pennycook, Housing and Planning Minister
Our country is in the grip of an acute and entrenched housing crisis which is not only blighting countless lives but also damaging the economy, and the public services we all rely on, by consuming every larger amounts of public money.
This government is not prepared to accept a generation locked out of homeownership, growing social housing waiting lists, millions of people trapped in insecure private rented housing, and tens of thousands of children in temporary accommodation.
We are under no illusion about the scale of the challenge, but we are absolutely determined to tackle the housing crisis head on and build a future in which everyone will have a decent, safe, secure and affordable home in which to live.
We will press on with building 1.5 million new safe and decent homes, delivering the biggest increase in social and affordable housing in a generation, creating the next generation of new towns, and streamlining the delivery of essential infrastructure to make sure we create great places and thriving communities.
And there is much more that we are doing to overhaul our broken housing system, whether its ensuring landlords tackle hazardous damp and mould so that no child will ever suffer the same fate as two-year-old Awaab Ishak, pushing ahead with the abolition of Section 21 ‘no fault’ evictions, or introducing reforms to end the feudal leasehold system for good.
We’re also acting to help homeowners, including improving the way we buy and sell homes so that we have a system fit for the twenty-first century. By harnessing the power of technology, we can make sure fewer property transactions fall-through and follow in the footsteps of Norway where property transactions take just a month on average – not nearly five months as is the case here. These reforms will save people money and ensure they can more easily move to different jobs if needed, bolstering economic growth and backing our Plan for Change.
