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Our estate agents required our purchaser to stump up £1000 which would be forfeit if they pulled out other than due to serious structural 'issues'.

Of course I wouldn't want to entrust a meaningful amount to an estate agent or LC (or indeed solicitor) without appropriate indemnity insurance.

While £1000 is not a trivial amount, compared to the deposit / cost of the property it often will be and its loss is unlikely to be a sufficient disincentive for the purchaser not to walk away in a range of circumstances.

Also for many other than limited amounts of savings they are not substantially liquid so as to make the 'reservation' to the extent that the risk of loss of the same provides the security the reservation fee is intended to achieve.

I also recall the brown & sticky hitting the PII & Comp fund fan when it came to reservation fees & etc for overseas properties.

That one has to ask the SRA for their understanding of when a binding agreement is formed is rather telling.

Insert your own Shakespearean warning here.

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