Why Are So Many House Sales Falling Through?
Transcript
Hi, I’m Ruban Selvanayagam, Co-Director here at Property Solvers.
If you’ve ever sold a property — or you’re right in the middle of it — you’ll know how frustrating it can be: endless delays, chasing for answers, and that constant cloud of uncertainty. It’s no wonder so many buyers and sellers find the whole system exhausting.
And the stark reality is that In 2025 So Far, View My Chain Has Recorded Over 214,000 Fall Throughs and Counting. At current rates, that could mean roughly one in three property sales fail to complete this year. Each one represents wasted surveys, conveyancing bills, and months of lost effort — a reminder of how fragile the process remains.
So why do so many transactions fall apart — and what’s being done to fix it? In this video, I’ll unpack the biggest causes and highlight the new tools and innovations that are starting to make a difference.
So let’s dig in…
The truth is, there’s no single reason why house sales collapse. Sometimes it’s the system, sometimes it’s finance, and sometimes it’s just life getting in the way.
And whilst every sale is different, the patterns are clear. To keep things simple, I’ve broken the causes down into seven broad areas that we often come across here at Property Solvers…
First up, Pricing and the Market
With many estate agents continually over-inflating property values to win business, buyers quickly lose trust — and that uncertainty ripples straight into the sales process, especially during negotiations.
From a wider perspective, it remains very much a buyer’s market at the moment. And whilst headlines about falling prices may be open to debate, they still shape sentiment.
Add in sustained higher interest rates and uncertainty over what Rachel Reeves might announce in the autumn budget — especially around Stamp Duty and Capital Gains Tax — and buyer caution only deepens.
With the market tipped in their favour, gazundering is also on the up — this is where buyers effectively capitalise on uncertainty to force last-minute price cuts. It leaves sellers facing a harsh choice: accept less or start things all over again.
Next, Chains and Delays
If you’ve ever been caught in one, you’ll know how brutal they can be — one weak link and the whole thing collapses.
This is particularly common in London and the South East, where several hundred thousands of pounds are often tied up in every step of the chain.
If just one buyer can’t get their mortgage, or one seller drags on paperwork, everything grinds to a halt. Add in slow local searches, overstretched solicitors, and surveyors booked up for weeks, and it’s no surprise that buying + selling a house remains one of the most stressful processes people go through.
Indeed, our own Property Solvers Speed of Sale tool shows that it now takes around six months on average from listing to completion. You can use the tool yourself (we’ll add the link in the show notes) to see how long it typically takes in your local area.
Meanwhile, GoTo — a conveyancing and property services firm — has found that Completion Timelines Have bizarrely Risen by Roughly 38% over the last decade, underlining just how much slower the process has become.
Remember, roughly two-thirds of UK transactions sit in a chain, so one failure often ripples across multiple moves.
And when it drags on that long, people get “chain fatigue.” They lose patience, or their circumstances change, and suddenly the whole deal falls apart.
3rd, Valuations and Surveys… One mention of damp, roof issues or potential structural problems and suddenly buyers are running for the hills.
Surveyors are also cautious, often down-valuing properties compared to the agreed price. That leaves buyers short on their mortgage, forcing awkward renegotiations or relistings.
Insurance problems and issues such as cladding make things worse. Flats without the right fire safety paperwork, or homes in flood zones for instance can be almost impossible to mortgage — leaving buyers with no option but to pull out.
Next, Mortgage and Finance — which can make or break a deal…
Most buyers need a mortgage, but offers only last a few months at most. With sales taking longer, offers can expire before completion. Lenders have also frequently been known raise important “make or break” criteria mid-way through, so a buyer approved at the start might not qualify later.
Deposits can be shaky too — maybe dependent on another sale, a family transfer, or money that just doesn’t land when it should.
Add rising transactional and moving costs into the mix, and buyers often get cold feet when the numbers stop adding up.
5th are the Conveyancing Problems
Legal red tape is another common roadblock. Missing paperwork, hidden complications, and lengthy checks can bring a sale grinding to a halt.
When dealing with private treaty sales here at Property Solvers we often see title issues, restrictive covenants, negative easements, or unregistered land only coming to light far too late in the process — by which point, time and money have already been wasted.
Even relatively small oversights, like missing building regulation sign-offs or outdated planning permissions, can stall a transaction for months and test everyone’s patience.
Leasehold flats with short leases or escalating ground rents also often get stuck when mortgage companies refuse to lend.
And probate sales can take months before executors even have the authority to sell — by which point, buyers have often lost patience.
6th are the Human Factors. Sometimes, it just comes down to people. Cold feet, life changes, or simple disagreements can derail months of progress.
Divorces, relocations, or health issues can change priorities overnight. Some buyers make offers and then vanish without any explicable reason. Even small things — rows about fixtures, disputes over moving dates, or family members weighing in — can be enough to kill a deal.
And all too often, once an offer’s accepted, everyone relaxes, urgency fades — but then the deal starts to drift.
Finally, are Property-Specific Issues
Some problems come down to the property itself.
Tenanted property sales can stall if vacant possession takes too long, while cladding issues or unusual ownership structures quickly put buyers off. Shared Ownership and Right to Buy transactions frequently add hurdles that buyers and solicitors have to work through.
And sometimes, sellers simply realise they won’t get enough from their sale to fund their onward purchase — and pull the plug themselves.
The real cost of all these fall-throughs is staggering. Buyers lose money on surveys, mortgage fees, and conveyancing costs. Sellers lose weeks or months of marketing time, only to find themselves back at square one.
Industry-wide, the financial hit is huge: GoTo suggests collapsed deals cost the housing market around £400 million every year in wasted fees and lost time — and the broader economic impact could be about £8.6 billion when you factor in spending that never happens because moves don’t complete.
But the problem isn’t just financial. Huge amounts of industry time and energy are wasted each year as solicitors, agents, and lenders chase transactions that are stuck or doomed to fail. This could be spent helping people move — instead, it’s wasted on duplication and dead ends.
And then there’s the emotional cost. Imagine packing, planning, and setting your heart on a move — only to have it unravel at the last moment. The stress, frustration, and disappointment is massively frustrating.
So, the big question: can the system actually be fixed?
The answer is yes — but it will take more than a few tweaks.
It means rethinking property transactions from the ground up to cut delays and give everyone more certainty.
A number of solutions are already in the early stages of development, being trialled in parts of the market and pushed by policymakers.
Let’s start with Upfront Information Packs…
Right now, many sales collapse simply because critical details surface too late. Land Registry title documents and Law Society forms, planning permissions, building control certificates, warranties and guarantees often only emerge weeks (or even months) into the process.
By then — although buyers have already spent money on surveys and legals — when unexpected issues come to light, many simply pull out.
There’s growing support for sellers to prepare Upfront Information Packs before a property even goes to market. By pulling together all the essential documents from the outset, delays are reduced and nasty surprises are less likely to derail the deal later on.
Scotland’s upfront Home Reports are often held up as a good model — ESPC data shows that around 8.7% of sales (roughly one in twelve) collapsed a couple of years ago. While that figure only covers ESPC-listed properties, it still provides a useful benchmark and is far lower than fall-through rates seen in England and Wales.
England and Wales tried a similar system with Home Information Packs or HIPs back in 2007, but they were scrapped just three years later. They were expensive for sellers to produce, difficult to compile, and often lacked the consistency or credibility for buyers and agents to really trust them.
So if HIPs are ever reintroduced, they’d need to be cheaper, digitally streamlined, and underpinned by clear industry standards so the information is complete and reliable. Done properly, upfront packs could save time, restore confidence and cut fall-throughs significantly.
The next is Better Communication and Buyer Vetting
One of the simplest — yet most overlooked — fixes is active engagement. Far too many sales collapse because buyers and sellers aren’t kept properly in the loop. If solicitors, lenders, and estate agents gave regular updates, it would ease so much of the frustration – not to mention build trust.
Estate agents in particular need to step up. Too often offers are accepted without the right checks in place. At a minimum, buyers should provide proof of an Agreement in Principle from their lender, evidence of deposit funds, and clarity on their legal position before being taken seriously.
When weak buyers slip through, problems only become apparent months later — by which point time and money have already been wasted. Stronger pre-qualification and firmer standards from agents would stop many of these deals collapsing before they’ve even begun.
The next is Chain Visibility and Collaboration
As mentioned before, interdependent transactions are one of the biggest killers of sales. Right now, most people in a chain don’t know what’s happening further up or down the line. You could be waiting on one link, while the real issue is with another.
However, platforms like Coadjute are proving how powerful real-time collaboration can be. Their technology allows all stakeholders to share data instantly, see progress across the transaction, and track outstanding tasks. Instead of endless chasing emails and phone calls, everyone has the same live information in front of them.
Other players are moving in a similar direction. View My Chain, for instance, has shown in pilot schemes that greater visibility can cut the time to exchange by an average of 17 days.
Services like Moverly, mio, Sort Move and even some of the larger conveyancing networks are also investing in dashboards and data-sharing tools that aim to keep chains moving and give all parties a clearer picture of where the delays sit so that issues can be resolved quickly.
Next is Digital Conveyancing
The legal frameworks that underpin buying and selling property is another major reason why transactions collapse. The increase in completion times is not just down to old-fashioned paperwork and snail mail.
Many solicitors are overloaded, taking on more files than they can realistically handle. That leads to long response times, missed deadlines and frustrated clients.
Add to this the lack of joined-up systems between conveyancing firms, agents, surveyors, search providers and lenders — with most communication still reliant on email chains and phone calls — and it’s easy to see why delays pile up.
Accelerating conveyancing through digital solutions is increasingly stripping out much of the friction that slows transactions.
Tools like automated compliance checks, instant AML and ID verification, secure document sharing, e-signatures, and integrated case-management platforms give buyers and sellers far more certainty that their sale will actually complete.
The likes of InfoTrack and Dye & Durham are digitising searches, SDLT returns and Land Registry applications; Hoowla and Clio are streamlining case management and client communication; while platforms such as Thirdfort and ONP provide robust digital ID and AML verification in minutes rather than days.
Together, these kinds of innovations can reduce a range of bottlenecks, cut response times, and free solicitors to focus on progressing the actual legal work rather than chasing admin.
And Finally… Smarter Property Data and Open Standards
Another major shift is happening around the way property data is created, stored, and shared. At the moment, vital information is scattered across multiple parties, often inconsistent, and duplicated at every stage of the process.
It’s no wonder sales grind to a halt when details don’t match up or when buyers, lenders, and conveyancers are all working from slightly different versions of the truth.
This is where initiatives like the Open Property Data Association (OPDA) come in. Their goal is to create common standards — a shared “language” for property information that everyone in the transaction can rely on.
If documents, searches, and identity checks were digitised at source in a standardised format, they could be trusted, verified, and reused across the entire transaction.
The government is also pushing in this direction. The new Data Use and Access Bill will give consumers the right to access their data in a safe digital format and share it with accredited providers.
Alongside this, the Smart Data Council is bringing regulators, industry, and consumer groups together to set out the rules for how property data can be securely standardised and shared.
The impact would be huge: less duplication of effort, fewer disputes, and far fewer delays caused by re-checking or chasing the same information.
Add in trust ecosystems — similar to what we already see in Open Banking — and consumers could safely control and share their own verified data with estate agents, solicitors and lenders through accredited platforms.
If these standards become embedded, the home buying process could finally start to mirror the efficiency we take for granted in other sectors. The result would be faster transactions, lower costs, and a system buyers and sellers can actually trust.
So, looking ahead, it’s encouraging to see real momentum in tech and innovation, with new tools emerging that aim to make property transactions faster, more transparent, and far less likely to collapse — changes that could truly transform the experience for buyers, sellers, and the professionals supporting them.
Artificial Intelligence is already speeding up ID checks, fraud detection and document review — but its potential is far greater.
Imagine AI tools that can scan leases for hidden risks, predict which transactions are most likely to stall, or automatically flag missing documents before they cause delays. Platforms like Luminance and other legal tech providers are already applying AI to complex contract review, showing how it could transform conveyancing.
Blockchain could also play a major role. Imagine if title deeds, leases, and warranties were stored securely on a blockchain — Smart Contracts could instantly verify authenticity, flag gaps, and trigger key milestones automatically. That kind of automation would cut down the disputes and delays that so often derail sales.
It would also reduce duplication, disputes and human error, and projects like Coadjute are already exploring how blockchain can support secure, real-time data sharing across the transaction.
Predictive Analytics is another area with huge potential. Data-driven models could provide a “risk score” for a chain before it even starts, allowing estate agents and conveyancers to spot weak links and intervene early — cutting the number of failed sales dramatically.
For buyers and sellers, the biggest frustration is often being left in the dark. Consumer-Facing Apps linked directly to conveyancing systems could give real-time updates — much like parcel tracking — so people always know where things stand.
Several startups are already developing these consumer dashboards to reduce the bottlenecks and improve transparency.
And finally, End-to-End Platforms could break down the silos that exist today, where estate agents, solicitors, lenders and surveyors all work on separate systems that rarely connect.
By bringing everything together in a single dashboard, every party could share the same live view of progress. Early versions are already emerging, and it’s clear that deeper integration is where the industry is heading.
To conclude, when so many sales are collapsing, it’s clear the system isn’t working — but there are solutions, and they’re starting to gain traction.
Here at Property Solvers, we’ve designed our services to cut through a lot of this uncertainty. Whether it’s a fast cash sale or selling through our 28- or 56-day auction routes, we focus on speed, certainty, and avoiding the months of stress that come with the open market.
Of course, these options won’t be right for everyone — but for homeowners who want to move quickly and with peace of mind, they can be a real alternative.
If you found this video useful, don’t forget to hit like, subscribe to the channel, and check out some of our other videos on buying + selling properties and the broader UK housing market.
Thanks for watching — and I’ll see you in the next one.
