Landmark Information Group has today published Property Transaction Reform: What the Market Wants Next, its 2026 research into residential property transactions.
It includes insights from 250 property professionals, including 100 residential conveyancers, and 500 home movers who had bought and/or sold in the last 18 months. The research took place in August 2026 as the sector began preparing for the Government’s Home Buying and Selling Reform roadmap, published in June.
Their answers show a profession seeing real progress, while still carrying a heavy load.
Fewer additional enquiries, less chasing
The average proportion of cases needing additional enquiries, because of missing, incomplete or inaccurate upfront information, has fallen from 51% in 2024 to 43% in 2025 and 33% in 2026.
Time spent chasing is down too. Conveyancers estimate they now spend 34% of their working day chasing other parties or responding to requests for updates, compared with 41% in 2025.
Liz Jarvis, Managing Director of OneSearch, said: “The fall in additional enquiries is a meaningful improvement. But the reality is that a considerable proportion of cases still need more questioning, and spending around a third of your working day chasing is still significant.”
Earlier information is seen as the answer
More than three quarters of conveyancers (77%) identified at least one improvement to upfront information and data readiness that could improve productivity and business success.
Their clients point the same way. 95% of home movers surveyed agreed that having key property information available at the point of listing would make moving less stressful.
Ready for reform, waiting for clarity
Most conveyancers (81%) believe meaningful reform of the home buying process is long overdue, and 72% expect significant or moderate operational change from preparing for earlier buyer and seller commitment.
Fewer feel ready to act on it. Only 64% agree there is enough clarity in the roadmap to start considering the changes required.
“Firms need more clarity about the information they require” Liz added. “This includes when it needs to become available and, really importantly, how it’s going to move between the different parties. The more certainty they have around those requirements, the better placed they’ll be to look at their current processes and where they need to be.”
What the report recommends
The report sets out four priorities for a more connected transaction: closing the upfront information gap, mitigating unexpected issues, reducing chasing, and connecting the market through better information sharing and communication.
To explore the findings in full, download Property Transaction Reform: What the Market Wants Next.
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Landmark’s latest Residential Property Trends Report is now available, featuring the most recent data on listings, sold subject to contract / sold subject to missives, search orders and completion volumes across England, Wales and Scotland.
Our Q3 2026 analysis shows residential markets remained subdued, with supply holding relatively steady in England and Wales while demand, searches and completions continued to track below last year’s levels. In Scotland, listings, searches and completions also remained down year-on-year.
Across both markets, affordability pressures and wider uncertainty continue to hold back progress. Here are our headline findings across England and Wales:
- Listing volumes in Q3 2026 were down 2% compared to Q3 2025.
- SSTC volumes in Q3 2026 were down 11% compared to Q3 2025.
- Search order volumes were down 12% in Q3 2026 vs Q3 2025
- Completion volumes were down 7% in Q3 2026 vs Q3 2025.
Click below to view the full reports and explore what the latest data tells us about the market.
Japanese knotweed rarely brings down a house. It brings down sales, mortgage offers and sometimes a seller’s defence in court.
In 2023, a buyer clearing the garden of his new £700,000 home in south-west London found knotweed growing behind a bush near the shed. The seller had ticked “no” on the TA6, and the bill that followed came to roughly £200,000. The plant hasn’t changed much since then, but the form has, so here is where knotweed stands for conveyancers in 2026.
What is Japanese knotweed, and is it illegal to have it?
Japanese knotweed is an invasive plant that spreads underground through rhizomes, and even small fragments can regrow. Left unmanaged, it can push through paving, crack garden walls and get into drains and outbuildings. It is far less likely to threaten the structure of a sound house, although buyers and lenders don’t always find that reassuring.
Having it isn’t illegal, and there’s no duty to remove it from your own land. The law applies in three other places. It is an offence under section 14 of the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 to plant it or otherwise cause it to grow in the wild. Knotweed and soil containing it count as controlled waste, so it can’t go in the green bin (or a skip). And councils can serve a community protection notice on an owner who lets it spread and does nothing about it.
What does the TA6 ask about it now?
Since 30 March 2026, firms accredited under the Law Society’s Conveyancing Quality Scheme have had to use the sixth edition of the TA6 for every new instruction. The fourth and fifth editions have been withdrawn, although matters already running on an older form can carry on with it.
Knotweed sits in section 8, Environmental matters. Question 8.6 asks whether the property is affected, and 8.7 asks about surveys and management plans. The Law Society’s explanatory notes say a property is usually treated as at risk if knotweed is growing on it or within three metres of its boundary. They also accept that sellers can’t easily be certain, because rhizome can sit in the soil with nothing showing above ground. That’s why many sellers answer “not known”.
Is “not known” a safe answer?
If it’s true, yes. An honest “not known” passes the job of investigating to the buyer, who can commission a specialist survey if they want certainty.
It isn’t a hiding place, though. A seller with a treatment invoice in a drawer doesn’t “not know”, and the notes are clear that sellers must answer from what they know and update their answers if anything changes before exchange. That applies to executors and attorneys too, even if they’ve never set foot in the garden.
The riskier box is “no”, because it is a positive statement that the plant isn’t there. In the 2023 case, expert evidence showed the knotweed by the shed had once stood around two metres tall and had been treated with herbicide during the seller’s ownership. The court didn’t accept that he believed his answer, and he was ordered to pay around £32,000 in damages plus up to £95,000 of the buyer’s legal costs.
Whatever happened to the seven-metre rule?
RICS dug it up in 2022, and unlike the plant, it hasn’t grown back. The RICS standard Japanese knotweed and residential property, in force since 23 March 2022, replaced the old rule of thumb that any knotweed within seven metres of a house was a problem.
Valuers now use a decision tree that places an infestation in one of four management categories, A to D, based on what it is actually doing: whether it’s affecting a structure, restricting use of the garden or simply growing nearby. Lenders generally only expect a retention in the more serious categories, and knotweed on a neighbour’s land within three metres of the boundary won’t usually trigger one by itself. Individual lenders can still set their own criteria, so it’s worth checking.
What if it crosses the boundary?
Then it becomes a nuisance question. In Network Rail v Williams [2018] EWCA Civ 1514, the Court of Appeal held that rhizomes encroaching onto a neighbour’s land can be an actionable nuisance before any physical damage is done, where the landowner knows (or ought to know) about the risk and doesn’t act reasonably.
The Supreme Court narrowed that in Davies v Bridgend County Borough Council [2024] UKSC 15. Knotweed had spread from council land into Mr Davies’s garden long before the council was in breach of any duty, and he couldn’t recover the loss in value that remained after treatment, because the breach hadn’t caused it. Historic spread is now a much harder claim to win. Knotweed heading over the fence today is a different matter.
What should a buyer ask for?
Paperwork. Where knotweed is present or has been treated, the buyer’s conveyancer should expect to see:
- a survey by a contractor accredited by the Property Care Association or the Invasive Non-Native Specialists Association
- a written management plan, usually running over several years
- an insurance-backed guarantee, typically for ten years, with confirmation that it transfers to the buyer
- records of the treatment carried out so far
The aim these days is management rather than eradication. A documented, guaranteed infestation is something a lender can work with. An undocumented one is a guess. An environmental search can also help show whether knotweed has been recorded nearby. [CHECK: confirm which OneSearch reports include knotweed data and link the specific product]
The knotweed behind that shed in south-west London cost its seller about £200,000, and hardly any of it went on digging. Almost all of it came from one tick in the wrong box.
So treat question 8.6 as the start of a conversation. A “yes” should arrive with a plan and a guarantee, a “not known” is an invitation to survey, and a “no” deserves a polite question about what it’s based on.
Gazumping is still legal in England and Wales, and will be for a while yet. Here’s why it happens, what it costs and what’s changing.
Agree a price on a house in Glasgow and, once the missives are concluded, both sides are bound. Agree a price in Gloucester and what you have is an accepted offer, a memorandum of sale and around four months of hoping nobody turns up with a bigger number. That gap is where gazumping lives. In June 2026 the government said it intends to close it, just not yet.
What is gazumping?
Gazumping is when a seller accepts one offer, then drops it for a higher one from someone else before contracts are exchanged. The first buyer can match or beat the new figure, or walk away.
It has a mirror image. Gazundering is when a buyer cuts their offer late in the transaction, often close to exchange, betting that the seller (and possibly a whole chain) can’t afford to start again.
Why is it legal?
Because until exchange there’s nothing to break. An accepted offer isn’t a contract, and neither is the estate agent’s memorandum of sale. A contract for the sale of land has to be in writing, signed by both parties and contain all the agreed terms under section 2 of the Law of Property (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1989, and in a residential sale that normally happens at exchange.
Agents don’t stop taking offers, either. Under the Estate Agents (Undesirable Practices) (No. 2) Order 1991, they must pass every offer to the seller promptly and in writing, unless the seller has said in writing that they don’t want to receive it. “Under offer” on a listing tells buyers where things stand. It doesn’t close the door.
Why is it so rare in Scotland?
A Scottish sale becomes binding when the missives are concluded, which usually happens well before the equivalent of exchange in England and Wales. Once that’s done, there’s no room for a late bidder. Scotland also has Home Reports, so buyers have the key information before they offer. That combination is exactly what the government now wants south of the border.
What does it cost a buyer?
Everything spent before exchange is at risk: searches, survey, mortgage arrangement fees and legal costs. If the buyer has already agreed their own sale or given notice on a rented home, the damage can travel down the chain.
Gazumping is only one way a sale collapses. The government puts the share of sales that fall through, for any reason, at around one in three.
What is the government planning?
The home buying and selling reform roadmap, published on 19 June 2026, commits to two things that matter here. The first is mandatory sales packs, including searches and a property condition report, prepared before a property is marketed. The second is binding conditional contracts much earlier in the transaction, with penalties for pulling out without a valid reason and exceptions for situations such as a collapsed chain.
The order matters. Binding contracts need new legislation, which the government will introduce when parliamentary time allows, and they won’t come into force until sales packs are embedded. The target is the end of this Parliament. Until then, gazumping is exactly as legal as it was when we first wrote about it in 2022.
What can buyers do in the meantime?
Shorten the gap, and protect what’s spent inside it. Practical steps include:
- getting a mortgage in principle before offering, so the seller sees a buyer who can move
- instructing a conveyancer as soon as the offer is accepted, with ID and source of funds ready to go
- asking for the property to come off the market as a condition of the offer
- considering a lock-out (exclusivity) agreement for a fixed period
Some of the cost can be protected too. OneSearch Pledge is a warranty added to a search order that reimburses the searches in that order, up to £300, if the purchase falls through for one of the listed reasons. One of them is the seller accepting an offer at least £1,000 higher that the buyer is unwilling to match. It isn’t an insurance product, and the cost of Pledge itself isn’t refunded.
In Glasgow, the handshake and the contract arrive much closer together. In Gloucester there are still months between them, and the reforms that would close that gap are some way off.
Until they arrive, the best advice is to keep the gap as short as possible, and to make sure the money spent inside it isn’t money the client can’t afford to lose.
Of all the risks conveyancers deal with, Friday afternoon fraud is one of the most damaging. It does not rely on a defect in title or a missed search result. It relies on a single email arriving at the right moment with the wrong bank details.
Here is how it works, why the name undersells it, and what firms can do to stop it.
What is Friday afternoon fraud?
It is a form of payment diversion fraud. Criminals intercept and redirect legitimate property purchase funds by impersonating solicitors, estate agents or buyers. The aim is simple: persuade someone to send a deposit, completion monies or sale proceeds to an account the fraudster controls.
The numbers show why it persists. Between April 2024 and March 2025, 143 cases of conveyancing fraud were reported to Action Fraud, with losses of £11.7 million. The average loss was around £82,000, and victims were noticeably younger than for many frauds, with 32% aged 40–49 and 27% aged 30–39. For a first-time buyer, that is often everything they have saved.
Why Friday, and why does the name undersell it?
The name comes from timing. Completions often happen on a Friday, and the weekend buys criminals time to avoid detection. By the time anyone notices on Monday, the money has usually been moved on.
The name is also a little misleading, because it can happen on any day. The real pattern is not the day of the week. The scams are timed for the final stages of a transaction, when large sums are expected to move quickly. That can mean exchange, a deposit request or the release of sale proceeds, as well as completion.
How does the attack work?
There are two common routes. The fraudster either takes over a genuine email account or spoofs one with a lookalike domain, then sends “updated” bank details. A hijacked account is the more dangerous of the two, because the email really does come from the right address.
Compromised mailboxes are rarely used straight away. The fraudster will often read along for weeks, learning the matter, the names involved and the tone of the correspondence. The fake request then arrives at exactly the point a client is expecting to pay.
The weak point is not always the firm. Sometimes the solicitor has been hacked, but often the homebuyer has fallen for a phishing attack. That is why client education matters as much as internal security.
What are the warning signs?
Most fraudulent requests share a few features:
- Bank details that change, or arrive for the first time, late in the transaction.
- Small alterations to names, email addresses or company details, such as ‘m’ swapped for ‘rn’.
- A reply-to address that differs from the sender address.
- Pressure to pay quickly, often with a warning that any delay will cost the client the property.
- An account name or bank that does not fit the firm.
None of these is conclusive on its own. Together, they are a reason to stop and check.
What should firms have in place?
The most effective control is a simple rule: bank details are never changed by email. Give clients the firm’s account details at the start, in the client care letter and ideally by a second route. Tell them plainly that the firm will never change them by email.
The NCA and Law Society guidance for property transactions comes down to three steps. Call before transferring money, because emails can be intercepted. Send a small test sum and confirm it has arrived. Do not transfer anything until you are satisfied the details are correct. The call has to go to a number already held on file, never one given in the suspicious email.
Beyond that, firms can:
- Use multi-factor authentication on every mailbox.
- Train staff to treat any change of payment details as a potential fraud until proven otherwise.
- Put a fraud warning in email signatures and client care letters.
- Use Confirmation of Payee checks as an extra layer, but not as the only one.
The same discipline applies in the other direction. When a seller client emails asking for proceeds to go to a new account, it deserves the same scrutiny as a buyer being asked to pay.
What happens if money goes to the wrong account?
Speed is everything. Contact the sending bank immediately, because the chances of recovery fall with every hour. The incident should also be reported to the national fraud reporting service.
Firms have regulatory duties too. In one case, an experienced solicitor was fined £10,000 and ordered to pay £16,000 in costs after being tricked into transferring more than £290,000 to a hacker. There was no dishonesty, but the SRA expects such cases to be reported, even where the stolen money has been replaced.
Friday afternoon fraud succeeds because it exploits the moment a transaction is most exposed: large sums, tight deadlines and clients who are expecting to pay. The technology behind it can be sophisticated, but the defence is not. A clear rule that bank details are never changed by email, backed by a phone call to a known number, stops most attacks.
The firms that avoid losses are rarely the ones with the most advanced systems. They are the ones where every member of staff, and every client, knows to stop when payment details change and to check before anything moves.
At the end of the latest Cross Border Conveyancing Chat, OneSearch Managing Director Liz Jarvis leaves listeners with one question; how you and your firm answers it says a lot about your search provider.
It’s a simple question, but not an easy one to answer. Imagine your search provider vanished overnight. Would your team feel panic, relief, or would they barely notice the difference?
Liz posed the question towards the end of the discussion, after a wide-ranging chat with Richard Hepburn, Managing Director of Millar & Bryce, about what good search provision really looks like. But each of the three answers points somewhere quite different. And the one that sounds most reassuring may be the one to worry about.
Panic: the answer you want
Panic sounds bad, but it really isn’t. If losing your provider would result in alarm, it’s usually because they’ve become part of how your firm works, not just where you email orders now and then.
Liz describes that as the difference between a supplier and a partner. A partner gets to know your processes, your clients and where your firm wants to be in twelve months and adapts to support it. When something goes wrong, they come to you early with a solution, often before your client knows there was a problem. When they come in for an account review, they bring performance data, market insight, and useful ideas. As Richard put it, good account management helps firms run better, not necessarily buy more.
If that’s your relationship, the panic is justified. You’d be losing something hard to replace.
Relief: the friction you’ve learned to live with
Relief is more common than most firms would admit, and more telling.
Richard’s view is that inertia keeps many firms with the same provider for years. Switching feels like another project, and familiarity can look like satisfaction. Underneath, though, the low-level friction builds up: chasing results, correcting errors, finding out about delays after the client has already asked.
Liz spent more than 15 years as OneSearch’s operations director, and her lesson from that time is that delays themselves are rarely the real problem. Not hearing about them is. Telling a customer the bad news up front lets them manage their own client’s expectations from day one. The same goes for how problems are handled. The true test of a provider is whether they can resolve an issue themselves, quickly and with some empathy, rather than passing it back to the local authority.
None of this shows up on a price list. The hidden costs of rework, chasing, complaints, and delays only appear when you go looking for them. If the thought of your provider disappearing brings a flicker of relief, those costs are already there.
Nothing at all: the answer that sounds fine.
This is the one most firms would give, and it’s the one worth thinking about most.
A provider you wouldn’t miss isn’t necessarily a bad one. Orders go in, results come out, nobody complains. But Richard points out that when search provision is treated as a commodity, “working” becomes the only thing anyone checks. And a provider you’d barely notice losing is one that isn’t doing much you’d notice having.
Some of what a good provider does is, by nature, invisible. Liz gave the example of an experienced researcher who knows a particular local authority usually lists four pages of planning applications for a large development. One day there’s only one. An automated check accepts it. The experienced eye sees a red flag. Richard described Millar & Bryce sending up to a hundred data amendments to Registers of Scotland every month, fixing errors before they turn into someone else’s problem.
Then there’s what’s coming: home buying reform, advances in property technology, climate and flood risk, and clients who expect everything to arrive on their phone. A provider that’s simply keeping pace today may not be ready to help you tomorrow.
So, which is it?
Richard’s own version of the question was more direct. Looking at your firm today, with your workload, client expectations, risk profile and the changes happening around you, would you choose the same provider again? He was clear that OneSearch and Millar & Bryce want to be judged by the same standard.
And as Liz added, if you pause before answering, that pause is worth paying attention to.
Find out which answer is yours. The OneSearch search provider scorecard takes about five minutes: 18 questions across data accuracy, turnaround, customer service, account management, search pack completeness and value, with an honest breakdown of where your provider stands.
