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.”
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.
Shekina is the deputy editor at Mortgage Solutions and commercial editor at Mortgage Solutions and Specialist Lending Solutions. She has nearly eight years of experience in the B2B publishing market, having previously covered the hospitality, retail, pet, accounting and jewellery sectors.
Shekina has worked for Mortgage Solutions and Specialist Lending Solutions for almost five years. Here, she covers the market’s breaking news stories, engages with professionals in the sector, and oversees any commercially agreed content in partnership with mortgage-related companies.
This includes presenting webinars and hosting roundtable discussions on developing themes in the mortgage sector.
She is an NCTJ-trained journalist and was nominated for the Headline Money Awards Mortgage Journalist of the Year in 2021.
In her spare time, Shekina likes to read, travel, listen to music and socialise with friends.
She currently reports on current events in the mortgage market and liaises with financial clients to produce sponsored content.
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