Senior legal figures have sharply criticised the government’s radical house buying reforms. 

One even calls the proposals “a charade”.

The government says its proposals – revolving around increased digitisation, upfront information packs and binding agreements – will “slash” both the time it takes to buy and the proportion of fall-throughs now plaguing the buying process.

The proposals have received a warm welcome from much of the estate agency sector but conveyancers have sharply differing views.

David Smith – a well known property lawyer and a partner at Bishop & Sewell – says: “Slashing delays is a slightly optimistic turn of phrase given that the current average time to conveyance is 120 days which is just over 17 weeks and the government is proposing to remove four weeks from that, leaving 13 weeks .… This seems like a generous use of the word ‘slash’.”

“The government plans to make ‘sales packs’ compulsory. They do not say what will be in these and the consultation admitted that they were dangerously similar to the failed policy of Home Information Packs (HIPs) which was introduced by the Housing Act 2004 before promptly being scrapped.

“Unless these packs are structured in such a way that they can actually be relied on (which was a major failing with HiPs) they will be of no significant effect at all. 

“Most buyers simply do not look at the detail of a property they like and leave it to their conveyancer. It will take a major change in behaviour for sales packs to make much difference or a change in the law. 

“This will also massively up estate agent costs (and fees) so if it is not of any use that would be a bit of a pointless exercise.”

“The more useful change is likely to be making the use of early binding agreements the norm. Some estate agents use these already (I have drafted some of them) and they substantially reduce the risk of prospective buyers being overly optimistic about their borrowing power and making offers they cannot ever actually afford, with either the intention of a last minute cut in their offer when it is too late for everyone to walk away or due to ignorance of their real financial position.”

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A more hostile opposition comes from Stephen Larcombe, founder of the Property Lawyers Alliance.

He describes the government’s house buying proposals, and the timing of their announcement, as a bid to distract the public from the problems besetting the current Labour Party leadership.

He says previous consultation on the reforms as “a charade” with decisions taken after pressure “from a law tech sector whose lobbying power now dwarfs the voices of the very professionals who safeguard the public interest.”

He continues: “Conveyancing is to be re‑engineered by the government to serve the commercial ambitions of rapacious law tech businesses. This is the road to conveyancing hell, and its genesis reveals just how cynical a government can be when dazzled by technological fanatics and deaf to the profession it claims to support.

“Conveyancers have long been expected to absorb every new burden. We have done so because the public relies on us. However, there comes a point when a profession must say enough is enough.

“If these proposals proceed, the future of homebuying will not be shaped by evidence or professional expertise. It will be shaped by the loudest lobbyists in the room, and the public will ultimately pay the price.

“The fight for our professional independence starts today.”

Larcombe is also a spokesperson for the Conveyancing Task Force and on behalf of that organisation he says: “Property lawyers face being dragged into a digital Wild West, where opaque algorithms shape the evidence. And when things go wrong, it is professional indemnity insurers, not the law tech sellers, who will carry the blame.

“Government, meanwhile, risks repeating the mistakes of the past. HIPs should have been a warning. But the bigger threat is a political one. The spectre of another Post Office Horizon‑style IT scandal, where blind faith in technology, weak oversight, and a naïve belief in digital infallibility combined to produce catastrophic injustice.”

But in a sign of splits in the conveyancing community, support for the government measures has come from the Council of Licensed Conveyancers (CLC).

A spokesperson for that group says it strong backs the reforms, adding: “The CLC has a long history of championing innovation and modernisation in the legal services market, particularly where it improves the consumer experience, and we stand ready to play our part, working with Licensed Conveyancers to deliver these changes.”

There’s support, too, from Lifetime Legal, which describes itself as “a leading provider of legal services to estate agency”.

It embraces the proposed changes with chief executive Rob Sendall saying: “For too long, moving home has meant unnecessary delay, duplicated paperwork and the constant risk that a sale falls apart at the eleventh hour.

“We see the human cost of this every day. Buyers and sellers invest time, money and emotional energy, only for transactions to collapse late in the process.

“This roadmap addresses the root causes head-on: missing upfront information, weak early commitments and a lack of digitalisation.”

And a new body led by high-profile conveyancing sector figure Rob Hailstone, says it’s keen to hear industry views on the reforms.