Roughly 1 in 3 agreed property sales fail before completion. Those collapses leave buyers and sellers with around £400 million a year in wasted costs. That is not an unfortunate little quirk. It is evidence of a system that has normalised delay, uncertainty and unnecessary expense.

I have been around property for more than 15 years. The longer I have spent buying, selling, renting and investing, the more obvious it has become that some parts of the market are not merely inconvenient. They are fundamentally badly designed.

Leasehold, Stamp Duty, Shared Ownership, unverified property education, the home-buying process and the balance of rental contracts all need serious reform. In some cases, I would go further and abolish the current system entirely.

1. Leasehold

England has an estimated 4.9 million leasehold homes, close to 1 in every 5 properties. Around 1.5 million are houses. That matters because leasehold is not ownership in the way most buyers naturally understand the word. You own the right to occupy a property for a fixed period, while someone else owns the land or building beneath it.

I have rarely touched leasehold property myself. There are legitimate investment strategies built around short leases and lease extensions, but that does not make the system sensible for an ordinary household buying a long-term home.

If someone pays £300,000 for a house and spends the next 30 years clearing the mortgage, expecting them to own the freehold is hardly radical. Flats are more complicated because roofs, lifts, insurance and communal areas need collective management. But shared maintenance does not require a separate third party to retain permanent control of the building.

The risk becomes sharper as a lease shortens. Government analysis has estimated that around 246,000 owner-occupied leasehold households had fewer than 80 years remaining. A shorter lease can damage value, restrict mortgage options and make an extension more expensive.

Reform is moving in the right direction. Most new long residential leases granted since June 2022 can charge only a peppercorn ground rent, effectively £0, while government policy is moving towards commonhold as the default model for new flats. Houses should overwhelmingly be freehold. For flats, the owners should collectively control the building through a clear and workable commonhold structure. If you have paid hundreds of thousands of pounds for a home, actually owning it feels like the bare minimum.

2. Stamp Duty

Residential Stamp Duty Land Tax raised roughly £10.4 billion in 2024/25. Abolishing a tax of that size would leave a hole in the public finances, so anyone proposing it should be honest about the trade-off. The revenue would need to be replaced, spending would need to fall, or a broader property tax would have to take its place.

My objection is not that property can never be taxed. It is that Stamp Duty taxes movement. A buyer purchasing a £500,000 main home in England, who is not eligible for first-time buyer relief, currently faces a £15,000 bill. That money does not reduce the mortgage, improve the home or create equity. It is simply the price of changing ownership.

The April 2025 threshold changes showed how strongly the tax affects behaviour. Transactions jumped as buyers raced to complete before the deadline. When the tax changes, the timing of moves changes with it.

That creates a wider problem. A retired couple may want to leave a four-bedroom house for somewhere smaller. A worker may need to relocate. A growing family may need one more bedroom. Every move can release a property that better suits someone else, yet Stamp Duty places a large financial toll between one home and the next.

Property wealth, rental income and capital gains can all be debated as potential tax bases. But a tax that discourages people from moving can make the homes we already have less efficiently used. I would replace Stamp Duty with something fairer and less damaging to mobility.

3. Shared Ownership

There are around 252,000 Shared Ownership households in England, compared with roughly 161,000 five years earlier. That is growth of about 57%, so this is no longer a niche route into housing.

The appeal is obvious. If a household cannot afford a £300,000 property, buying 25% sounds like a manageable first step. The problem is everything attached to that share. A buyer may pay a mortgage on the portion owned, rent on the remainder, service charges and management costs, while the property itself remains leasehold.

Staircasing can make the route more expensive than people expect. Further shares are normally purchased at the property’s market value at that time, not its original price. If 25% of a £200,000 home is bought initially, the remaining 75% is worth £150,000. If the home later reaches £300,000, that remaining share is now worth £225,000. The first share has appreciated too, but the buyer’s income and borrowing power still have to chase the market if the goal is 100% ownership.

Shared Ownership has worked for some households and can provide access where an outright purchase is impossible. That should be acknowledged. My problem is the structure, which can leave people carrying costs and responsibilities from both renting and owning without receiving the simplicity of either.

A government-backed route should be designed around a clear journey towards full ownership, with transparent fees and fewer traps. The current Shared Ownership model needs replacing with something simpler.

4. Unverified Property Education

I would require people selling expensive property education to prove that they have meaningful experience in the strategy they teach.

There is no credible official statistic showing how many property course sellers have successfully invested or developed property themselves. There is no universal register and no simple independent standard. That absence is part of the problem. A large online following can become a £3,000 or £5,000 course before the customer has any reliable way to confirm that the person teaching has done the work.

This does not need another decorative qualification or a certificate that can be bought over a weekend. It needs verification. Someone teaching HMOs should be able to evidence that they have operated HMOs. Someone selling a development course should show completed developments. Someone teaching flips should be able to demonstrate purchases, refurbishments and sales.

Land Registry and Companies House records can already verify elements of ownership and business activity, with sensible protections for privacy. The aim is not to reveal every financial detail. It is to stop theory being marketed as hard-earned expertise.

I did not share anything of meaningful monetary value until I had been involved in property for around 9 or 10 years. I am not suggesting that 10 years becomes the legal threshold. I am saying that a spreadsheet cannot teach what happens when a builder disappears halfway through a refurbishment, or why a brilliant yield on paper can still conceal a terrible investment.

If someone charges thousands specifically because of their expertise, asking them to prove that expertise is reasonable.

5. The Home Buying Process

The home-buying process may be the clearest example of an outdated system. Around 1 in 3 transactions fail before completion, and the latest reported average is about 170 days from an accepted offer to completion. The process is around 60% slower than it was in 2007.

A buyer can agree a price, instruct solicitors, pay for searches and a survey, arrange finance and plan a move. Until exchange, either side can still walk away. That is how gazumping, gazundering and entire chains collapse after households have spent real money in good faith.

Government research puts the direct wasted cost to buyers and sellers at around £400 million each year. In June 2026, ministers announced reforms built around upfront sales packs, earlier binding agreements, digital identity checks and a more digital conveyancing process. The intention is to reduce fall-throughs, cut delays and make important information available before a property is listed.

That is the right direction, but delivery matters more than a press release. Buyers need key information early, not after weeks of legal work. Once that information is disclosed and both parties make an informed commitment, there should be consequences for walking away without a legitimate reason.

There must still be escape routes for serious survey problems, misrepresentation, failed finance and other genuine issues. Binding does not have to mean blind. But when 1 in 3 agreed transactions collapses, the current process is not functioning properly.

6. Rental Contracts That Work Both Ways

This will be the controversial one, so the distinction matters. I am a tenant as well as a landlord, and I support strong tenant protection. A landlord who provides an unsafe property, ignores serious repairs, mishandles a deposit or acts illegally should face meaningful consequences.

The same principle should apply in both directions. A tenancy is a contract. One party provides a safe and legally compliant home. The other pays the agreed rent and treats that home responsibly. When either side deliberately stops meeting those obligations, the system should respond fairly and quickly.

This is not about punishing someone who is a few days late or has fallen into genuine hardship. People lose jobs, become ill and experience relationship breakdowns. Support and early intervention matter. There is a real difference between cannot pay and will not pay.

England’s rental framework has already changed significantly. The Renters’ Rights Act 2025 received Royal Assent in October 2025, and its main tenancy reforms took effect in May 2026. Section 21 no-fault evictions ended, most assured tenancies became periodic and landlords now rely on specified possession grounds, including serious rent arrears and antisocial behaviour.

My preferred next step would be an independently regulated rental record for both sides. Serious safety breaches by a landlord could be recorded. So could proven deliberate damage or deliberate non-payment by a tenant. It could not be a private blacklist controlled by landlords. It would require evidence, independent oversight, a right of reply and a proper appeals process.

Good conduct should carry value too. A tenant with a 10-year record of paying on time and looking after every home should be able to demonstrate that. A landlord with a record of safe homes, prompt repairs and fair treatment should benefit as well.

The debate has become football tribalism, with landlords and tenants told to choose opposing teams. That is pointless. Protecting good tenants from bad landlords and good landlords from bad tenants are not contradictory positions. They are the basis of a rental market people can trust.

The bottom line

After more than 15 years around property, I still believe it is one of the strongest long-term assets an ordinary person can own. Supporting property does not require pretending that every part of the system works. It clearly does not.

Nearly 1 in 5 homes in England are leasehold. Shared Ownership has expanded by roughly 57% in five years. Residential Stamp Duty raises more than £10 billion a year. Around 1 in 3 agreed sales never reaches completion.

These are not tiny administrative quirks. They are reasons to ask whether we could design ownership, moving and renting considerably better. I think we can.

What would you abolish or fundamentally change about the UK property market? Do not just write ‘landlords’ and disappear. Give me the reason, because the solution matters more than the slogan.

Sources and further reading

This article is for general information and education only. It is not personalised financial, investment, tax or legal advice. Property rules and taxes can change, so check the latest official guidance and consider regulated professional advice where appropriate.

Written by Aren Deu | The Anxious Investor