Here's something that surprises most buyers when they call us to book a viewing. We'll ask for your Agreement in Principle before we confirm it. The pushback is almost always the same, "other agents don't ask for that." And they're right, plenty don't. But here's the honest question: should they? Every seller we work with, almost without exception, wants to know that the person viewing their home can actually afford to buy it. That's not an unreasonable thing to want. You're opening your home to a stranger, potentially taking it off the market, and pinning your next move on the outcome. The least anyone should be able to tell you is whether that buyer has spoken to a mortgage advisor. So the pushback isn't really about the AIP. It's about buyers not realising this is how it should work and agents not being honest enough to explain why.

What an AIP Actually Is

An Agreement in Principle is a statement from a mortgage advisor confirming how much you'd provisionally be able to borrow based on your income, outgoings, and a soft credit check. It's not a formal mortgage offer and it doesn't tie you to anything. But it tells us and more importantly the seller, that you've had a real conversation with a professional and you know what you can actually borrow. An online mortgage calculator is not the same thing. It's a rough estimate based on numbers you've typed in. It doesn't account for your credit history, your existing commitments, or what you'll actually be offered. We've seen buyers fall in love with a property, have an offer accepted, and then discover they can't borrow what they thought they could. That's a painful situation for everyone and it's almost always avoidable.

What It Does for You as a Buyer

This is where most buyers change their mind once they understand it properly. When you have your AIP in place, you become a serious buyer in a market full of people who aren't quite ready. We maintain a database of committed buyers through our Heads Up Property Alerts, people who are financially prepared and ready to move. Those are the buyers who hear about properties before they hit Rightmove. Those are the buyers sellers want to deal with. In a market where the right property can go quickly, being that buyer matters. It means your offer gets taken seriously. It means the seller has confidence in you. And it means the whole process moves faster and with less stress on both sides.

The Bigger Picture — What Most Buyers Don't Know

Nationally, one in three sales fall through after an offer is accepted. Thirty three percent. In most cases finances weren't properly checked, or the buyer simply wasn't as ready as everyone assumed. But here's the part that surprises most buyers. As estate agents we are legally required to forward every offer we receive to the seller right up until exchange of contracts. Every single one. That means if someone offers more than you the week after your offer was accepted, we have to tell the seller. Without a Reservation Agreement in place, there is nothing legally stopping them from taking it. That's not a scare tactic. That's just how it works. Once a Reservation Agreement is signed, that changes. The property comes off the market. The seller is committed to you. You're not spending weeks progressing a sale, instructing solicitors, booking surveys, and taking your own home off the market — only to find out someone came in higher and the seller walked away. That happens more than people realise and it's devastating when it does. In a market where you've found the right home, that security is worth more than most buyers appreciate until they've lost a property without it.

There is a cost involved, £600 split equally between buyer and seller. For most people that's a straightforward decision when you consider what's at stake. You're not paying £300 to sign a piece of paper. You're paying £300 to know the sale is real.

We introduced Reservation Agreements in 2020. Since then we've completed over 600 of them and our completion rate on those sales sits at 94%, compared to a national average where one in three sales fall through. That's not a new idea we've borrowed from somewhere. It's six years of evidence that it works. You may have seen it in the news recently, the government is now looking at making Reservation Agreements standard practice across the industry. Some agents are starting to pick it up. We've been doing it quietly since before most people had heard of it. It's not about making things harder for buyers. It's about making the whole process work properly for everyone involved, including you.

Your Next Step

If you're thinking about buying in Sittingbourne, Faversham, or the surrounding ME postcodes and you haven't got your AIP in place yet, that's the first conversation to have. Get that sorted and you'll be in a position to move quickly when the right property comes up and with our Heads Up Property Alerts, you'll hear about it before most people do. Drop me a message and we'll point you in the right direction. No obligation, no sales fluff, just a straight conversation about getting you ready to move.