Gazeal, the company offering a system through estate agents which aims to tie buyers and sellers into a transaction after acceptance of an offer, has announced a new partnership with the Mortgage Advice Bureau.
MAB, whose network of 1,350 advisers largely operates through estate agency offices, will ensure that buyers are in a good financial position before they make the offer which will be subject to a reservation agreement.
Reservation agreements are currently voluntarily but could become law.
The Government has expressed interest in trialling reservation agreements, and although the Ministry of Housing has yet to make a formal announcement, it is understood that these will be in the New Year.
The aim of reservation agreements is to prevent fall-throughs plus gazumping and gazundering.
MAB chief executive Peter Brodnicki said: “Technology is helping both Gazeal and MAB to increase the speed, ease and convenience of buying and selling a home.
“Anything which brings a level of certainty to the home moving process can only be a good thing – getting an upfront commitment from the buyer and seller gives comfort to both parties.”
Brodnicki added: “Engaging with a mortgage adviser as early in the home buying process as possible makes complete sense. We really welcome the process and platform Gazeal have introduced as it brings the mortgage to the beginning of the negotiations.”
Bryan Mansell, of Gazeal, said: “Mortgage Advice Bureau was an obvious choice to partner with as they share our vision to make buying and selling a property more transparent, secure and easier. They are also clear market leaders in their sector and work closely, as we do, with estate agents all over the UK.”
Mansell went on: “We feel strongly that the customer gets key advice throughout the process, thus enabling them to make decisions with more information available.
“We provide the property information, we also provide information on our conveyancing partners and now with our partnership with Mortgage Advice Bureau, mortgages.
“Understanding the availability of the right mortgage is so often left to the last minute and we fully support the need to explore this much earlier in the buying process, ideally before potential homes are viewed and definitely before an offer is submitted.”
He said: “Gazeal’s digitally produced legal pack including searches is delivered to the buyer’s conveyancer on behalf of the seller at the very same day they agree the deal.
“This legal pack, alongside a mortgage decision in principle, and our reservation agreement, significantly improves the certainty of the deal and dramatically cuts down the time it takes for people to move into their dream home, which is what everybody wants.”
While there has yet to be an official announcement, a senior civil servant at the recent Bold conveyancing conference said that trials of reservation agreements would be held in two regions.
Matt Prior, the lead on house buying reform at the Ministry of Housing, suggested that different types of agreements could be trialled, some involving deposits of £500, others of £1,000 and others with no deposits.
Comments (18)
Anything to speed up the conveyancing process and reduce fall throughs should be looked at.
Issue i have is a chain is only as strong as the weakest link. Be that buyer, seller, estate agent, mortgage adviser OR conveyancer.
Unless the entire chain agrees to a “Reservation agreement” its pointless.
Do agents not have experience dealing with new build companies and the stress reservation agreements make?
Reservation Agreements is not the answer… Gazeal just brings another snout in the trough, seeking their margin and conveyancing referral income… god knows how MAB think this is going to help them, unless it’s just about presenting MAB services to consumers logging onto Gazeal.
Fairfax87 – You seem to make a negative comment in literally every single article about us and as usual, you are incorrect. Gazeal doesn’t take any referral income from conveyancers and in fact, the platform is completely free to agents and conveyancers. Feel free to call me or arrange to meet up if you’d like to really understand the Gazeal process…And I’m absolutely certain that you’ll be surprised about how commonplace reservation agreements will be in 2020 and beyond.
Sorry for being late to the party on this. If you dont charge a referral fee, how do Gazeal make any money?
Hi, we simply charge the vendor and purchaser £250 each on completion. No sale – No fee.
There you are, Mr ‘Reservation Agreements won’t work Blah Blah we can set our watch by your negativity.’ provide some evidence or suggestions on what might’ work or stop wasting everyone’s time reading your drivel.
The more people (agent, broker and conveyancer) involved early in the process driving it along and most importantly, managing expectations, the better in my opinion, I like this format, and I think it will become the way forward in the next 5 years in our industry, The moans on here about long conveyancing timescales are often because the agent or broker don’t know how to get the clients doing the legwork. I tell every one of my clients, “we will update you at least once per week, but when we do, remember, it is you paying the lawyers bill, so two things are important, 1) if the lawyer says jump, you say how high and get the info they need as quickly as possible, and 2) Don’t be afraid to be demanding of your lawyer – If it isn’t going as quickly as you like, demand more (although you can only realistically do this if you are dealing with a proper property lawyer not some cheap factory conveyancing outlet that could give two hoots about this….) With the added incentive of reservation agreements, I think this will improve, but only if the basics of EARLY sales progression and setting the client up to help comes through from the outset. I do think this helps buyers though, who often have the most to lose when entering in to a SSTC position.
TwtterSalisPropNews It is a bit harsh to say that Government are listening to the wrong people just because you don’t think they are listening to you (by the way, they are listening (well reading) to you). A lot of ‘coal face’ workers are involved from all sectors, estate agency, legal, financial, removals etc.
However, it looks like Government is trying to improve the process whereas you want to improve the calibre of some of the people who work within that process. Maybe both need to be done but surely the latter is down to the regulators etc to do, not the Government?
Indeed Rob, that’s the point of any forum reply – to be listened to.
(Fairfax87 – well said.)
Referral Agreements are a complete red herring. They crop up once in a while, usually by some London Agents but what a distraction from just getting on with the conveyancing. I can give you a simple one side RA, but there is always an out for adverse search results, mortgage difficulties, defective title/CML defective title, an adverse survey, etc etc They are just pointless, and the arguments when one party wants their money back!! Talk about wasting estate agent, legal and public time.
(Where is the latest draft of the proposed RA – for us all to see?)
But EAs are already free to use them, but that would be adverse on the EA, so unless Government imposed – in which case use a single prescribed precedent – they won’t happen.
Instead……….just vet the buyer more thoroughly, investigate their chain, or don’t accept their offer!
Poor vetting is far too common now, I assume because of the reduced commission levels now in the market and the desperation to just keep the revenue coming in.
Which is worse, fall through rates, or the sluggish pace of conveyancers? If the former, then EAs can be regulated to properly vet, if the latter, then RAs won’t help with that.
The real task at hand is not tackling fall-through rates, as estate agents can do that, it is how to tackle how slow the conveyancing process is.
The Government sought views…and with what result? The reasons why conveyancing takes so long should be listed, then tackled. But I guess there’s no money to be made from that.
Have seen Gazeal in action at the point of instruction. A clear BS detector for an agent talking to a thoroughly unmotivated seller. Change is slow, but it’ll happen and tools like this will become best practice in time. Keep pushing guys
Same could have been said for HIPs …. That worked out well!
Whilst I certainly don’t want to open up a HIPs debate again but in the case of a HIP Govt wanted
1. it mandatory for a prospective seller to have someone they were not able to check out uninvited in to their home
and
2. FDM was the mandatory requirement to make available all of the documents required within a HIP on the first day a home was marketed to the public. – why should anybody dictate when one wishes to put any of their possessions up for sale!
The upside of a HIP could of course have been that buyers could make offers based on information provided which should have in turn speeded up the process giving a degree more certainty
Agents will leave themselves open with these reservations agreements if the process is not followed correctly.
Our process is very clear for agents to follow. We work with our agents and their customers directly to ensure exactly what you have said.
We make sure we send out a legal pack to a buyer within days. Days. But that instant provision of upfront information alone makes zero difference. It still takes ages for the conveyancing – no fall throughs, so reservation agreemenst are NOT the issue in the slightest – because of shoddy conveyancing pace, where conveyancers do not care, estate agents have not tied any part of the chain down to a timescale, and there are no plans afoot to change these two facts.
But waste time over reservation agreements, Veyo was always a non-starter, and as the Government are listening to the wrong people over what is wrong with conveyancing, none of us – any time soon – can expect a solution to why the conveyancing part of home moving takes an age – and why so many members of the public once they move in, are sitting on defective legal work.
Wow, that is exactly the negative attitude to change that prevents this industry from moving out of the dark ages with respect to transactions. I wonder if, when you see a new client, you actually tell people the truth about exactly how long it’s going to take and all of the problems they may well encounter. I suspect not, instead you lead them blindly into the slow and painful house buying and selling process. Offer something positive, what would your idea be? Instead of the negativity
Thanks for commenting. Whilst I am aware of our industry’s sceptics it’s also brilliant to work with Peter Brodnicki and the team at MAB. Having spoken to many of the Agents with MAB there is a real desire to change the lengthy process. Looking forward to getting started.
Bravo sounds like an excellent service