Protecting Commission in a One-in-Four Market

Commission invoices at completion, not when the offer is accepted. When roughly a quarter of agreed sales never get there, protecting the pipeline is an operational problem, not a contractual one.

Propelr Editorial Team10 min read

What you need to know

With a national fall-through rate of 23.7%, roughly a quarter of agreed commission never invoices. Contractual protections — abortive fees, longer tie-ins, ready-willing-and-able clauses — are limited, scrutinised and commercially awkward. The durable protection is operational: reduce elapsed time to exchange and attack the four-week window where 38% of collapses happen.

  1. Most agency agreements pay commission on completion, so every fall-through is unbilled work.
  2. At the national 23.7% rate, roughly a quarter of notionally agreed commission never invoices.
  3. Abortive and ready-willing-and-able clauses are enforceable only if fair and prominently disclosed.
  4. Longer tie-ins protect the instruction, not the transaction — a different risk entirely.
  5. Speed to exchange is the most durable protection; binding contracts will help, but not yet.

Every agency knows the shape of this problem. The commission is agreed at the offer, the work is done over the following weeks, and the invoice raises on completion. When roughly one agreed sale in four never completes, a meaningful share of the work an agency does is structurally unpaid.

This guide looks at what actually protects that pipeline — starting with why the contractual answers are weaker than they look.

When commission is earned

Check your own agreement, because agencies differ and many negotiators are unclear on it:

TriggerCommission payable whenExposure to fall-throughs
CompletionThe transaction completesFull — most common arrangement
ExchangeContracts are exchangedMuch lower — post-exchange failure is rare
Ready, willing and able purchaserA qualifying buyer is introduced, whether or not the sale proceedsLowest, but heavily scrutinised

The third is the one agencies periodically reach for and then regret. Under the Estate Agents Act 1979 such a term must be prominently drawn to the client's attention before they sign, and it remains open to challenge as unfair. Enforcing it against a seller whose sale collapsed through no fault of their own is also, in practice, a reputational event you do not want.

Shifting the trigger to exchange is the more defensible contractual move and materially reduces exposure, since very few transactions fail after exchange.

Why tie-ins are the wrong tool

A long tie-in period protects against losing the instruction. It does nothing about the sale collapsing. Those are different risks, and conflating them leads agencies to solve the one they are not actually losing money on.

A sixteen-week tie-in keeps a frustrated seller with you. It has no effect at all on a buyer whose survey found damp. And lengthy tie-ins sit increasingly awkwardly with the direction of consumer protection regulation. See estate agent tie-in periods.

What actually protects the pipeline

1. Reduce elapsed time to exchange

The single most effective lever, because risk accumulates with time. Industry analysis puts the spread in median time-to-exchange between the fastest and slowest conveyancing firms at roughly 40 days. Every one of those days is exposure.

Which firms your sellers instruct is therefore a commercial matter for you, not just a preference for them — and one you can influence without any referral arrangement at all, simply by advising on what to ask.

2. Attack the first four weeks

38% of fall-throughs happen within four weeks of a sale being agreed. Most sales progression effort is weighted towards exchange. That is a misallocation, and correcting it is free.

The early window is dangerous because the buyer has committed nothing, the survey lands in it, and searches are pending so nothing visible is happening. Weekly buyer contact through that period — even with nothing to report — is the cheapest intervention available. See cutting your fall-through rate.

3. Get the legals started at listing

The structural fix. If title work is done and searches are ordered before a buyer exists, the first four weeks contain progress rather than silence, and the transaction reaches exchange substantially sooner.

This is also what the 2026 reforms will eventually require, and consumer appetite is already there — 89% of consumers say they would instruct a conveyancer before listing if it produced a faster sale.

4. Verify buyers before recommending an offer

Free, and it filters out a real share of buyers who later fail. Mortgage AIP with lender and amount, proof of deposit, full chain position, solicitor instructed. A verified chain-free buyer at a slightly lower price protects more commission than a higher offer that collapses in week three — and it is your job to say so.

What binding contracts will change

The government's proposed binding conditional contracts would commit both parties shortly after an offer, with financial penalties for withdrawing without a legitimate reason. For agencies that is potentially transformative: it attacks discretionary withdrawals, which are a large share of collapses.

The caveats matter. Binding contracts are deliberately sequenced after mandatory sales packs, the penalty structure is undefined, and no commencement date exists. Plan for it; do not wait for it.

Modelling your own exposure

A calculation worth doing once a quarter:

  1. Total commission value of sales agreed in the quarter
  2. Your cohort-tracked fall-through rate
  3. Multiply — that is commission agreed that will not invoice
  4. Estimate progression hours spent on those specific transactions
  5. Model the same figures with the fall-through rate five points lower

For most agencies the second number is larger than they expect, and it reframes early conveyancer instruction from a nice-to-have into a revenue protection measure.

Propelr works with agents on exactly that — a panel solicitor onto the seller's legals at instruction, so more of the pipeline reaches exchange. See Propelr for estate agents.

Sources and further reading

  • Quick Move Now— Fall-through tracker, Q1 2026
  • TwentyCi— Timing of fall-throughs
  • Estate Agents Act 1979— terms of business and commission clauses (legislation.gov.uk)
  • MHCLG— Home buying and selling reform roadmap, June 2026 (gov.uk)

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Frequently asked questions

When is estate agent commission actually earned?

Under most standard agency agreements, on completion — not on exchange and certainly not on an offer being accepted. Some agreements are drafted to make commission payable on exchange, and a minority on introducing a ready, willing and able purchaser. The distinction matters enormously: if your agreement pays on completion, every fall-through is unbilled work no matter how far the transaction progressed.

Can an agency charge for a sale that falls through?

Only if the agency agreement provides for it and the term is fair and clearly disclosed. Clauses paying commission on introducing a ready, willing and able purchaser can in principle be triggered without completion, but they are heavily scrutinised, must be prominently drawn to the client's attention under the Estate Agents Act, and can be challenged as unfair. Most agencies find withdrawal or abortive fees more trouble than they are worth commercially.

How much commission does an agency lose to fall-throughs?

Take your fall-through rate and apply it to your pipeline value. At the national Q1 2026 rate of 23.7%, roughly a quarter of the commission an agency has notionally agreed will never invoice. Nationally, the government's reform roadmap puts the cost of fall-throughs at around £400 million a year to consumers and £1.5 billion to the wider economy, of which agency commission is a substantial share.

Does a longer tie-in period protect commission?

It protects against losing the instruction, not against the sale collapsing — a different risk. A long tie-in keeps a seller with you if they become frustrated, but does nothing about a buyer whose survey came back badly. It also sits awkwardly with the direction of consumer protection regulation. Reducing the fall-through rate is a more durable protection than lengthening the contract.

Will binding contracts protect agency commission?

Eventually, and significantly. The government's proposed binding conditional contracts would commit both parties shortly after an offer with financial penalties for withdrawing without a legitimate reason. That directly attacks discretionary withdrawals, which are a large share of collapses. But binding contracts are sequenced after mandatory sales packs and have no commencement date, so this is a change to plan for rather than rely on.

What is the single best protection available now?

Speed to exchange. Risk accumulates with elapsed time and 38% of collapses happen in the first four weeks, so the shorter and better-populated that window is, the more of your pipeline survives. In practice that means getting sellers to instruct a conveyancer at listing rather than after an offer, which is also what the reforms will eventually require.

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