Fall throughs kill off one-in-five transactions - claim

Fall throughs remain a significant problem with transaction collapses costing buyers and sellers a wasted £880m in 2021 according to new research. 

HBB Solutions, a buying firm, analysed the number of property transactions to fall through on an annual basis, the cost of the collapses and how that total compared to the previous year. 

It discovered that the most common reasons for fall throughs were broken chains, survey issues, conveyancing delays, gazumping and a breakdown in negotiations.

The average cost of each collapse is £2,700 with buyers and sellers incurring abortive fees for surveys, conveyancing and mortgage arrangements. 

With an estimated 326,091 transactions failing to make it over the line in 2021, the estimate is a total £880.4m loss.

This was £74m up on the previous year. 

The managing director of HBB Solutions, Chris Hodgkinson, says: “One in every five property transactions will unfortunately fail to make it over the line  … Unfortunately an uplift in the number of transactions collapsing is the downside to the pandemic property market boom.

But there has been one silver lining to such a heightened level of demand - we’ve seen those properties that have endured a collapse manage to secure a new buyer at a very fast pace and often for a higher price than they were originally due to sell for. While this doesn’t make the cost incurred any easier to stomach, it does mean that they can push on with their sale and minimise the delay in moving.