Fresh figures have shown that failed house moves are costing buyers and sellers £400m a year.
One in four sales in England and Wales fall through, often after both parties have spent money on solicitor fees, surveys and other costs.
The chain management platform found this compared to 192,538 in 2024, 180,429 in 2023, 202,372 in 2022 and 220,644 in 2021. For all years, the time-period compared was January to August.
| Year | Number of fall-throughs | Fall-through rate |
| 2025 | 214,052 | 24.3% |
| 2024 | 192,538 | 23.6% |
| 2023 | 180,439 | 26.0% |
| 2022 | 220,372 | 22.2% |
| 2021 | 220,644 | 22.7% |
Source: ViewMyChain
Paul Halliwell, executive director at View My Chain, said: “Conveyancers and agents often blame missing searches, mortgage delays, and slow replies for stalled transactions, but these are only symptoms. The root cause is that the chain itself is hidden. Professionals waste hours chasing updates on cases that cannot progress resulting in four million working days lost every year and £400m wasted in fall-through costs.
“Policy, standards, and momentum have now aligned for impactful change to the transaction process. Invisible chains are no longer an unsolvable problem because the technology and integrations already exist to support transparency.”
According to ViewMyChain, achieving faster and more reliable completions requires transaction data to be visible within CRMs and case management systems through API integration – a service that it provides – supported by real-time interoperable feeds, and scaled nationally to cover every link.
In a pilot with a 1,000 branch national agency, ViewMyChain says chain visibility cut the time to exchange by an average of 17 days, achieved on a relatively light integration with their CRM – proof that even modest steps can unlock significant gains.”
According to ViewMyChain, achieving faster and more reliable completions requires transaction data to be visible within CRMs and case management systems through API integration, supported by real-time interoperable feeds, and scaled nationally to cover every link. Without this, outdated records, isolated processes, and fragmented systems will continue to undermine progress.
The company is calling on platforms to embed visibility into workflows and build chain intelligence into core systems.
Halliwell added: “Forward-thinking practices must start pushing their CRM providers for chain visibility features, participating in pilot programmes, or demanding integration capabilities that support transparency.
“The opportunity is significant. Cutting completion times will save thousands of wasted professional hours, reduce fall-throughs, and restore consumer confidence.”
Chain visibility is useful, but I doubt it makes a huge dent in fall-throughs. A buyer can still walk away on a whim even if every link is visible.
At Cooper Adams we’ve tackled this in a different way. We use reservation agreements so both sides commit financially at the point of offer. That stops the “change of heart” fall-throughs, which are often the most frustrating, and gives everyone more confidence to spend money on legals and searches knowing the deal is secure.
Technology helps with speed, but genuine security comes from getting buyers and sellers to put their money where their mouth is. That’s how we’ve cut fall-throughs far more than any dashboard alone ever could.
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May work for freehold but with leaseholds it should be an absolute no to reservation agreements. They are too complicated and management companies/landlords are loathe to give correct information in a timely manner. That said, we are seeing the increasing privitisation of Britain with more and more of such companies encroaching on freeholds with estate service charges.
People should have the right to walk away, especially when the properties they are being sold have safety defects. You cannot rely on an estate agent with little to no legal knowledge to identify this. But don’t worry, your usual factory outfit will be on hand to put the transaction through. I doubt the figures are as high as they are being made out to be. Once people have decided to go for a property and spent money, they want to find a way around any issues.
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Interesting that we have been successfully providing a Reservation Guarantee to thousands of sellers and buyers via Estate Agents for 7 years without many issues. The public prefers the certainty they offer and the unique way in which Gazeal, as an independent, arbitrate any problems.
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