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This just shows the sort of irresponsible, uninformed codswallop that is trotted out to the public by politicians on all manner of subjects they know very little about. Why does everyone want to buy a house in five minutes? The answer is that they don't. What they want is a good job done by their solicitor and if that takes time then there is usually a good reason for it. The biggest delays are caused by the personal positions of the seller and buyer (eg. finding a buyer and then taking weeks to find a property to buy) and by the mortgage process. The solicitor's job is to do the legal work, not to oversee every aspect of buying a house. As for saying that documents should not be thrown away as some information does not change, that is rather missing the point; the fact that all or any of the information might change means that new searches and enquiries have to be carried out every time a property is sold. After all, you wouldn't expect your doctor to diagnose your illness based on 10 year old tests! The politicians would like the public to believe that selling houses is like selling apples but it isn't. To refer to Mr Prior's restaurant analogy, it is like a chef collecting fungi for a meal and assuming that one fungi is very much like another. I would certainly hope in that situation that the chef would spend at least as much time on collecting the ingredients as preparing the meal. Likewise, I want my solicitor to actually check what is presented to him by the seller's solicitor, whether in the form of a property logbook or otherwise.