There is an old principle in business: if you want to understand why a system behaves as it does, follow the incentive. Perhaps we should apply that principle to home moving. Estate agents take the commercial risk of winning instructions, marketing properties and progressing sales they may ultimately never be paid for. Conveyancers carry enormous professional responsibility while competing in a market where margins have been squeezed relentlessly. Mortgage brokers provide regulated advice but can find themselves paying simply to get in front of somebody who needs a mortgage.

Meanwhile, an increasingly complicated economy has grown around the transaction itself: portals, panels, referral arrangements, introducers, lead generators, cash buyer businesses and connected corporate ecosystems. Individually, many of these services can provide genuine value. The question is what happens when the financial incentives surrounding the transaction stop pointing in the same direction as the consumer's desired outcome.

When a recommendation comes with a payment attached

Referral fees are an obvious example. There is nothing inherently wrong with one professional recommending another. In fact, good professionals should know other good professionals. The problem becomes more complicated when the recommendation also generates income.

Government guidance already requires consumers to be told when an estate agent or mortgage lender receives a referral payment, and makes clear that consumers do not have to use the recommended firm.

The Government's own 2026 home-moving reform work suggests the issue is far from settled. Among consultation responses calling for further intervention into property-sector practices, conditional selling and referral fees were the issues most frequently raised. Respondents also highlighted conflicts of interest, fees and wider estate-agency business practices as areas requiring greater scrutiny.

This matters because the moment a recommendation has a financial value, we have to ask whether the professional being recommended is there because they are the best choice for that client or because the introduction itself has become profitable. Those two things can coincide. But they are not automatically the same thing.

Then there is the "double commission" model

An even more interesting example can be found in the fast-sale property market. Various companies openly promote their services to estate agents as a way of resolving broken chains and moving difficult listings quickly. The offers are typically around 15% below the property's on-market value or listed price, whichever is lower.

For some sellers, that trade-off may make complete sense. A guaranteed cash buyer, speed and certainty can have significant value when a chain is collapsing or somebody urgently needs to move. But there is another part of the proposition that deserves attention.

These companies market "double-commission" to estate agents. When they buy a property introduced through an agent, and will also relist that property with the same agent afterwards. The agent can therefore earn their fee on the sale and potentially earn again when they resell it. Again, that does not mean anybody has behaved improperly. It does, however, create an interesting incentive.

The seller may be deciding whether to continue pursuing an open-market sale or accept a significantly lower price in return for certainty. The agent advising them may simultaneously have the possibility of being paid on that transaction and then receiving another instruction for the same property.

Surely it is reasonable to ask: Are all of the commercial incentives perfectly aligned with achieving the best possible outcome for the seller? That is the question that interests me far more than whether one particular company or business model is "good" or "bad".

The problem is bigger than estate agency

Mortgage brokers face another version of the same economy. A broker can build years of expertise and provide the actual regulated advice, yet still pay a third party to introduce the customer. One major adviser marketplace currently advertises mortgage enquiries starting at £10 plus VAT, with prices varying according to the potential value of the enquiry. Again, there is nothing inherently wrong with buying leads. If the economics work, it is a legitimate marketing channel. But dependence is different from choice.

If professionals increasingly have to rent access to somebody else's audience simply to reach the consumers who need their services, we should question what that does to genuinely independent businesses over time. The same principle applies to conveyancers reliant upon panels or paid introductions and estate agents heavily dependent upon third-party platforms for visibility.

Ownership alone does not guarantee independence if somebody else increasingly controls your route to the customer.

What are we actually rewarding?

This is the part of the debate I think deserves much more attention. We have constructed a home-moving system containing multiple opportunities to make money from passing the consumer from one organisation to another. The introducer can be rewarded. The platform can be rewarded. The lead generator can be rewarded. The referral network can be rewarded.

The transaction can generate new opportunities to sell additional services. Yet the estate agent may work for months and receive nothing if the transaction collapses. The conveyancer still carries the professional responsibility. The broker still carries responsibility for their advice. Perhaps we should start designing the economics of home moving around rewarding the people who actually get the consumer safely moved.

This is why we are taking a different approach

The Maverick Movement is based on a simple idea: the best independent professionals should be easier for consumers to find because of their expertise, reputation and service, not because somebody has been paid to push the client towards them.

Property Mavericks remain independent estate agents. Magic Circle Mavericks remain independent conveyancers. Finance Mavericks remain independent mortgage professionals.

WiggyWam provides the infrastructure that helps them become visible, prepare transactions earlier and work together more effectively, but it does not own their client relationships or their professional judgement.

Our Marketplace is designed to give professionals another route through which consumers can discover them directly, using profiles, expertise, content, ratings and reviews rather than requiring every enquiry to be sold as a lead. The ambition is not to pretend established portals, lead platforms and referral arrangements disappear tomorrow. It is to create an alternative which becomes more powerful as more good independents join it.

Capability before commission

Our own search partnership provides perhaps the clearest example of the principle we are trying to follow. We have integrated a specialist search provider into the WiggyWam Seller's Pack because we believe their expertise, local-authority relationships, human support and turnaround make the preparation process and Moving Hub better. WiggyWam receives no referral fee, commission or other payment from that search provider.

We selected them because we believe they improve the transaction. That distinction is important to us. If we recommend or integrate a professional service, the first question should be: Does this make the move better? Not: How much do we earn for sending the customer there? Capability before commission. Imagine if that became the normal test throughout the home-moving industry.

Follow the incentive

The Government's latest reform roadmap acknowledges many of the underlying problems: fragmented systems, repeated processes, inadequate visibility, poor access to information and a need for greater trust and transparency. It also records significant concern about the incentives surrounding existing property-sector practices. Technology will undoubtedly play a part in fixing those problems. But technology cannot repair a system if we leave the wrong incentives sitting underneath it.

We can digitise the referral. Automate the introduction. Connect the commercial ecosystem. Make the lead-routing algorithm more sophisticated. None of that answers the fundamental question. Who benefits when the consumer makes a particular decision, and does that incentive point in the same direction as the best outcome for the person moving home?

That is the question Mavericks should be prepared to ask. We believe good estate agents should prosper because they get clients moved. Good conveyancers should win instructions because people value their expertise. Good mortgage brokers should build businesses because clients trust their advice. And good specialist partners should be selected because they are good at what they do. Not because they paid the most for the introduction.

The people providing the expertise and carrying the responsibility should not permanently remain at the bottom of somebody else's commercial funnel. Follow the incentive. Then ask whether it is helping the client move, or simply helping somebody monetise the journey.

The Maverick Movement. Connected by WiggyWam. Independent by design.