Spring, a national home-buying and part exchange service, has entered into a landmark new partnership with McCarthy Stone, a developer and manager of retirement communities, which will see Spring become its largest part exchange provider.

The partnership will enable Spring to offer its part exchange service to McCarthy Stone’s customers to speed up and ease the home moving process for many of its future homeowners.

Spring will assist with buying the properties of people who need to sell their existing home before moving into a McCarthy Stone community, providing speed, certainty, and assurance.

The partnership comes as new analysis by Spring reveals that local authority searches, which form a core part of the conveyancing process, are taking on average 11.5 days to be completed in England.

However, there is a vast discrepancy across the country, with searches taking under 1 day for authorities such as North Shropshire District Council, Durham City Council and Macclesfield Borough Council, rising to 45 days for Camden Council and 60 days for Wirral Metropolitan Borough Council and Canterbury City Council respectively.

When combined with other factors such as increased mortgage due diligence times, under resourced conveyancers, inefficient processes and potential chains, this causes significant delays to the overall moving process.

When using a part-exchange service, homeowners are freed from these conveyancing challenges, with Spring taking on all responsibility for the existing property, allowing the customer to make their onward move seamlessly.

This new partnership demonstrates Spring’s commitment to supporting its retirement living partners over the long term.

Cormac Henderson, co-founder and executive chairman at Spring, comments: “With new data highlighting the vast discrepancy in local authority search times, which can contribute to a greatly protracted and stressful process, our new partnership with McCarthy Stone will enable us to provide its future homeowners with the speed and peace of mind they desire, in order to downsize smoothly to a new home within a McCarthy Stone community.

“By using part exchange, McCarthy Stone’s future homeowners can avoid the lengthy conventional conveyancing process and will be supported through the home moving process by members of our highly experienced team, streamlining the process, and taking care of every aspect for them. This reflects our deep-rooted commitment to supporting our partners to deliver the most seamless customer journey possible.”

Shane Paull, chief operating officer at McCarthy Stone, added: “McCarthy Stone is delighted to enter this partnership with Spring and we look forward to furthering the relationship as both our businesses grow.

“Part exchange has always been an important tool for our customers in securing their move and avoiding the stress of managing a housing chain. This remains the case now more than ever with increasing conveyancing delays.

“Working closer with our part exchange partners allows us to provide the best outcomes and value for our customers and is an important part of our purpose and plan.”