Mark Drakeford, the First Minister of Wales, announced that the housing market in Wales has partially re-opened. This came into effect on the 22nd June 2020, meaning people can now look at the houses and apartments for sale North Wales has to offer.
Estate agents and letting agents can now open up their offices, and have been given the go ahead to break the current five mile travel restriction to get the market moving.
The government has tried to make this available to people whilst keeping the risk minimal. This means that some guidance has been given on how to operate including:
- All moves can now go ahead if the new property has been vacant for 72 hours.
- Moves can now go ahead where the sale has been confirmed but not completed.
- Viewings and the marketing of unoccupied properties can now begin.
- Inspections and valuations of properties which are occupied can take place, but must be done safely and in correspondence to the current guidelines on working in someone’s home.
Currently, house moves can still not go ahead if the property is occupied. However, these properties can now begin to prepare for a full opening of the property market.
Urged to speed up
The Conveyancing Association has made new calls to the Government in Wales to speed up the opening of the property market. They believe the partial reopening doesn’t go far enough, specifically on how moving house where the property is occupied still not being able to go ahead.
Lloyd Davies from the CA has explained that the English property market has benefitted massively from being open for 6 weeks longer than the Welsh, and if nothing changes soon, then the Welsh economy will just continue to suffer.
He understands that the Welsh government is taking a very cautious approach to reopening, but believes the impact on the housing market will be more devastating than anything else.
Davies points out that we are able to shop freely elsewhere, even with the social distancing rules, so it is odd that we cannot go beyond viewing and selling just the unoccupied properties.
Currently, any new transactions within the property market are likely to take around 16 weeks to complete, creating huge damage to the Welsh economy.
