- Gazeal is a new product for house purchasing, particularly for first time buyers, buy-to-let or developers, set to transform the property market
- Process is made safer and more secure through Gazeal’s unique offer, which is backed by English law
- Goodbye to gazumping and guzundering – and the 22% fall through rate on property purchases
Gazeal, the new way to seal a house buying deal – ensuring no more last minute price hikes or price cuts – is launched today.
Figures from the National Association of Estate Agents (NAEA) indicate that 22% of property sales fall through for a range of reasons, equating to 242,407 properties. However, using Gazeal, once both parties have agreed a sale and purchase price for a property they are legally bound to complete the deal, putting an end to gazumping in overheated markets, or guzundering as the market cools.
Initially aimed at sellers or purchasers without a chain, such as first time buyers, buy-to-let or developers, the process uses Gazeal’s unique legally backed escrow service, which means buyers and sellers are locked into the deal as soon as terms are agreed, taking the stress and emotion out of selling property by ensuring the deal goes ahead.
To protect both parties once an agreement is made, each party pays £250 to ‘Gazeal the deal’. This means the Title of the property being sold is held in trust by Gazeal Ltd until the legal process is completed, at which time the exchange happens automatically.
Duncan Samuel, Gazeal founder and Managing Director explains: “In Australia, the USA and in Scotland here in the UK, as well as many other countries around the world, once a house sale and price are agreed verbally it is binding in law, subject to survey and title search.
“This is not the case in the rest of the UK, where deals can break down near completion for a number of reasons such as the vendor demanding a higher price than originally agreed, an alternative purchaser offering more, or a purchaser wanting to pay less than agreed or they will refuse to complete the purchase.
“Gazeal gives buyers and sellers certainty, by securing the sale at the outset of the transaction. This gives comfort to buyers and sellers, and also helps free up estate agents who spend much of their time going back and forward between vendors and buyers. It also gives confidence to developers who rely on stability and assurance that their properties can be sold quickly and efficiently.
Mark Hayward, President of the NAEA comments: “With an average fee on each house sale of £2,950, the fee amount lost or deferred adds up to over £715 million. Factor in over 1.2 million wasted house viewings as a result of sales falling through and this makes it a real issue for the industry.”
But it isn’t just the agents who are affected. The current system costs everyone money they can ill afford. This particularly affects first time buyers who, if a sale falls through, may still have legal costs to pay so have to wait months before they have saved the money to return to the market.
Bill McClintock the Board Chairman of the Property Ombudsman said: “One of the things that adds to the cost of sales for residential estate agents is that they only sell a proportion of the properties on which they are instructed. If they were able to count on selling a greater percentage their cost per property would reduce significantly.
“Further after the sale has been agreed between the seller and buyer, there is normally quite a long period of uncertainty whilst the buyer and their solicitors are checking the title documents and arranging finance. If this period could be shortened by a third party title insurance it would reduce the number of sales that fall through and fail to complete.
“If buyers and sellers enter into the Gazeal agreement this will reduce the risk and make the sale more certain to complete. This must be in the consumer’s interest and as such I would welcome such a move.”
Duncan Samuel concludes: “This is a simple, straightforward and cost effective way of making sure that once a sale is agreed to the satisfaction of both parties it goes through. It means both vendor and purchaser can plan with confidence and the estate agent has a guaranteed sale on the books. For all parties it really does pay to ‘Gazeal the deal’.”
