Remember last year when there was excitement over the possibility that agents would be sent to Belmarsh maximum security prison for not including EPC ratings in their property descriptions? The conversation was about how to provide for them”material information” And how this change was going to revolutionize the home buying and selling process.
In an attempt to downplay fears of impending mass incarceration, proponents were keen to emphasize that this new concept was a “no”.a silver bullet“. Given the historical origins of this “silver bullet”, which is the only effective weapon against mythical creatures such as werewolves and vampires, he clearly thought that the enforcement agency, National Trading Standards Estates and Letting Agency team had such supernatural powers.
But the project did not come to fruition and despite protests from those claiming existing laws already applied, the agents patiently explained that they needed to talk the hand out, as the news of the guidance being withdrawn was music to their ears and they wanted to get back to selling non-mortgage-worthy homes.
Surely all the information is useful?
Which was a bit of a shame, because if a buyer wouldn’t purchase a particular property for one reason or another it would certainly be better to find out sooner rather than later. That said, if your partner knew about your questionable personal hygiene and unacceptable snoring after a few pints of Peroni, it’s unlikely they would have said “Yes!!” Would have said. When you proposed on the viewing platform of the Eiffel Tower.
Even if we ignore the impact it has on an agent’s ability to reach the target by giving buyers all the excuses they need for not purchasing a property, there is one issue that no one has paid attention to, and that is what information needs to be collected and what happens to it?
what happens next?
Fans of “A Question of Sport” will remember the round where retired footballers watched a video of the referee blowing his whistle during a rainy Saturday afternoon at Lincoln City, when the pitch stopped and he had to say “what happened next“. They would have been unlikely to have guessed that an Apache helicopter would appear over the Western Stand, from which six Special Forces soldiers would descend onto the pitch on ropes and kidnap the Slovenian goalkeeper, who had overstayed his work visa.
The same applies to the concept of advance notice, without the same hilarious consequences (besides Vlad, obviously). Apart from some generally vague comments about “tenure, sanctions and contracts”, it has never been clearly defined as to what exactly is required, where it goes and who does what with it.
While the concept that sharing is important when it comes to property information is certainly caring, people have forgotten that the first step of the process is that a buyer instructs a solicitor to carry out their due diligence. Lawyers are under pressure to protect their clients, their clients’ creditors and indeed their own businesses from actions taken against them by their clients. Lawyers should be able to rely on the information if they need to defend themselves in the event of a problem in the future. This means that the source of the information becomes important, and beyond a few articles talking about data provenance, the concept of a PDF appearing from a random source doesn’t add much value to the process.
So shouldn’t we even try?
Without being intentionally negative, because any progress is good progress, we tend to be skeptical of those demanding change who are not actively involved in the day-to-day process, insisting that we are blocking things for the sake of it.
We can start by making sure we collect the right basic data, like names and addresses, accurately and completely at the start, which would save a lot of time, and then build from there.
Otherwise, if we, the people who actually need to trust the information, continue to keep buyers’ attorneys in the dark about what they can expect and what they can do with it, we will need more than one silver bullet to kill the multi-headed hydra that is the home buying and selling process 2026.
Peter Ambrose is the owner of The Partnership and Legalito.