Written question asked by Alex Chalk (Conservative) on Monday, 10 December 2018, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Wednesday, 12 December 2018. It was answered by Kit Malthouse (Conservative) on Tuesday, 18 December 2018 on behalf of the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government.

Gazumping

Question: To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, whether the Government has made an assessment of the potential merits of taking steps to tackle gazumping in the housing market.

Answer: The Government explored this in our consultation on improving the home buying and selling process during which the most common response to the question on gazumping was for buyers and sellers to commit earlier in the process.

Informed by this consultation, we are now working to increase the use of reservation agreements to support buyers and sellers to commit earlier in the home buying and selling process and reduce the rate of failed transactions, which currently stands at over 25 percent. In particular we are working with industry to develop a standardised reservation agreement and we are going to commission behavioural insight analysis to support their implementation.

Secondary information