A new campaign has been launched to make it easier to buy and sell property, in a bid to reduce the 466,000 property transactions that fall through every year.
With each failed transaction costing on average £1,752, UK homeowners are losing more than £800 million a year when transactions collapse, according to the Get A Move On campaign.
One in three transactions currently fall through, wasting time and money, and causing unnecessary "heartache", it said. Half of all homeowners say they suffered "emotional stress" during the move, its research shows.
The campaign proposes "long overdue" reforms to the property transaction process which has remained unchanged for hundreds of years, and is calling for changes to be debated in Parliament.
The campaign claims the entire moving process is too protracted, taking an average 10 weeks to exchange contracts, as solicitors manually send documents back and forth, and local authorities go through the archives to establish history of ownership. Lengthy property surveys make it worse.
Get A Move On is calling on the public to support the campaign by signing its e-Petition to lobby government to debate the need to modernise the process in Parliament.
It proposes a new legally binding contract within a week of an offer being accepted, committing buyer and seller to the transaction.
The transaction must be completed within a fixed time frame of no more than six weeks. There should be standardised fees for undertaking a survey, which should be publicly available, and digital housing records should be used, to avoid current reliance on original copies and paper trails.
Homeowners must complete their property survey prior to putting it on the market, making it available to buyers who wish to put in an offer.
Agents, solicitors or local authorities must pay damage for maladministration if they delay the sales process through their efficiency.
Russell Quirk, founder of eMoov.co.uk and the Get A Move On campaign, said the campaign aims to protect both the buyer and seller, and reduce the stress of buying a home. "We believe the current system is antiquated and that a few simple legislative changes will hugely improve the process saving consumers money, time and emotional stress. After hundreds of years, the time has come for change."
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