SWINDON, UK. November 2nd, 2026 – The UK’s original and largest property buying company Quick Move Now claims that buyers changing their mind is now the biggest cause of house sales falling through in the UK
According to the TwentyCi Property & Homemover Report Q3 2026, fall-through volumes fell by 6.4% compared with Q3 2025, while withdrawals dropped by 2.4%.
However, the wider market is cooling, with sales agreed down 6% year-on-year and exchanges 0.5% lower. Transactions are also taking longer, with the average time from sale agreed to exchange rising to 127 days so far in 2026, four days longer than in 2025.
Quick Move Now tracked the specific reasons behind failed transactions across its portfolio.
Its Q3 2026 data shows that buyers changing their mind was the primary cause of 37.5% of failed transactions. This is followed by mortgage/lending falling through (18.75%), survey issues and slow progression (both 12.5%), chain break, legal issues and trying to renegotiate the price (all 6.25%).
The figures also show that buyers are behind most failed sales. Taken together, buyers changing their minds, mortgage problems and attempts to renegotiate the price were behind 62.5% of all fall-throughs, nearly two in three.
Mortgage problems remain significant but have eased, accounting for 18.75% of fall-throughs, down from a third (33%) in Q2, even as mortgage rates edge towards 6%.
Survey issues are also down, making up less than half the Q2 figure of 27%.
However, delays are costing sales. Slow progression accounted for one in eight (12.5%) failed sales, reflecting the lengthening time between sale agreed and exchange.
Danny Luke, Chief Executive Officer at Quick Move Now, said: “In England and Wales, an agreed sale is little more than a handshake until contracts are exchanged, and our Q3 data shows how fragile that handshake can be. More than a third of the sales that collapsed did so simply because the buyer changed their mind, often after months of the seller paying for surveys, solicitors and planning their next move.
“With the process now taking more than four months from the sale being agreed to exchange, buyers have plenty of time to get cold feet as economic uncertainty and rising mortgage rates weigh on confidence. Anything that speeds up transactions and gives both sides more certainty earlier would make a real difference to the thousands of people whose moves fall apart every quarter.”
ENDS