Rejected petition: Make Property Offers Legally Binding to Protect Buyers and Sellers
Rejected on
Make accepted property offers legally binding. Too often, buyers withdraw late in the process after sellers have spent time and money progressing the sale, leaving sellers out of pocket. Introduce penalties for unjustified withdrawals to protect both parties.
In England and Wales, buyers can withdraw from a property purchase at almost any point before exchange of contracts. Too often, buyers pull out after sellers have spent weeks or months paying for solicitors, surveys, searches and other costs. This can leave sellers thousands of pounds out of pocket and cause entire chains to collapse. We want accepted offers to be legally binding, with fair exceptions for genuine circumstances, protecting both buyers and sellers from unnecessary financial loss.
Why was this petition rejected?
There’s already a petition about this issue. We cannot accept a new petition when we already have one about a very similar issue.
You are more likely to get action on this issue if you sign and share a single petition.
You may wish to sign this petition which calls for a similar action: https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/767569
We only reject petitions that don’t meet the petition standards.