Background to the sellers information pack

Whilst the Government appears to be convinced that the pack will reduce delays and uncertainties and generally speed up the process of buying and selling residential property in England and Wales many of the professional bodies are far from convinced.

Research from the DETR suggests that the current system of home buying and selling in England and Wales is one of the slowest in Europe and consequently leads to 28% of transactions falling through after an offer has been accepted.

It takes on average 8 weeks to progress an accepted offer to an exchange of contracts. One of the major reasons why so many sales take such a long time to complete is that more often than not there is a series of interdependent sales and purchases (a chain) something the sellers information pack does not appear to address.

The findings of a government sponsored pilot scheme held in Bristol in 2000 involving some nine solicitors, thirteen estate agents and covering some 61 completed sales have been variously interpreted by both proponents and critics of the scheme.

It is surely questionable whether such a small sample, 61 sales out of circa 1.5m sales per annum, produced any significant or meaningful evidence for or against the seller's information pack.