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Reservation agreement fee could be put towards deposit – MHCLG
The £1,000 put down by a buyer during a reservation agreement could possibly be put towards the deposit of a house, MHCLG has said.
Matt Prior, housing directorate of the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG), said the department had also “toyed with” the idea of using a credit card for the fee.
Speaking at The Council for Licensed Conveyancers’ (CLC) annual conference, Prior said this in response to being asked how the fee would be billed and whether it would be rolled up into the buyer’s mortgage.
Prior said reservation agreements were “still a live idea” and the department was waiting for consumer research to be produced by Qantar, which would then be taken to government.
He said: “I will go to ministers and say, ‘do you think it’s worth a trial?’ and if they agree, we’ll launch a trial sometime in the next few months.”
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In January, the Home Buying and Selling Group (HBSG) published an update on the progress of reservation agreements and said some questions on how it would work still needed to be addressed.