Conveyancing issues causing house sales to fall through, survey finds

 IPAV chief executive Pat Davitt said: 'Conveyancing delays put extra worry and pressure on purchasers and vendors as well as extra rental costs too in many cases at a time when budgets are very tight.'

Property sales are falling through due to “lethargic” conveyancing, the Institute of Professional Auctioneers and Valuers (IPAV) found.

Some 84% of estate agents surveyed said property sales have fallen through due to delays in conveyancing according to a new IPAV report.

Conveyancing involves the legal transfer of a property title from seller to buyer.

Mortgage loan offers are being withdrawn due to delays in this process, with 70% of estate agents surveyed saying loan offers are withdrawn occasionally, 26% saying it occurs frequently, and 4% saying it happens very frequently.

Some 88% of IPAV members have experienced delays in the conveyancing process, the survey found. IPAV chief executive Pat Davitt said:

Conveyancing delays put extra worry and pressure on purchasers and vendors as well as extra rental costs too in many cases at a time when budgets are very tight.

On average, conveyancing of a property takes about four months, IPAV said.

The survey was conducted in July with 534 participants. On a scale from 0 (least important issue) to 100 (greatest issue), on average respondents ranked the conveyancing process at 75.

Some 60% said delays in securing documentation and problems with deeds were the biggest reason for conveyancing delays occurring.

Mr Davitt said new legislation, the Sellers Legal Pack for Property Buyers’ Bill 2022, due to reach second stage in the Dáil on October 5, is designed to make conveyancing more efficient by stipulating that critical documents are gathered before the property goes to market.

Mortgage expert Karl Deeter, founder of OnlineApplication.io, said although sales do fall through due to delays, it is not at “epidemic proportions.”

Mortgages are a contract which have to be satisfied within a certain timeframe, and if you go beyond that time frame, obviously that becomes an issue. And if your circumstances change beyond that time frame, it becomes an even bigger issue.

But rising interest rates could mean if someone qualified for a mortgage four months ago, they may no longer qualify if they had to reapply due to the loan lapsing, he said. Typically, a loan offer will last for six months but conveyancing can take longer, especially in probate cases where documents are not easily found. “If you can't close a property deal in six months there’s something going wrong. And it’s really for the solicitors to answer.

“In my experience, in 20 years the most significant delay has been with the legal profession,” he said.

“There are countries where you don’t need to do a conveyance. There are better ways.”

Mymortgages.ie head of credit and author of The Mortgage Coach Joey Sheehan said while the system can be slow, he has never seen purchases fall through over conveyancing delays.

The delays he has seen are often with the banks issuing a loan offer, with up to a five-week wait for valuations, engineers reports, and costings for any remedial works.