The home-buyer's nightmare, gazumping, is a problem that plagues British home-buyers but is mostly unheard of abroad, according to a new report.

Initial findings of the official report also reveal that red-tape makes property deals in England and Wales among the slowest in the world.

However both countries have cheaper conveyancing than France, Portugal, Denmark, Hong Kong, the Netherlands, South Africa, Sweden and the US.

The results are part of the British Government's investigation into the pros and cons of home buying in England and Wales.

The study was proposed by Labour before the General Election amid a flurry of complaints about gazumping, where a vendor accepts a higher offer after having agreed to sell to someone else at a lower price.

The booming property market last spring fuelled calls for a shake-up in the law to outlaw the practice.

Scotland has no gazumping problem because buyers and sellers exchange contracts at an early stage in the process.

Unveiling the findings, the Housing Minister Hilary Armstrong said: "This study shows that the overall costs of buying and selling a house in England and Wales are the lowest of all the countries reviewed, but the total time taken to exchange contracts and complete is amongst the longest."

She pledged to look at the root cause of the delays and explore ways of tackling the problem, which causes homebuyers and sellers so much "frustration and stress"

Ms Armstrong is on a special Government task force with Geoff Hoon, Parliamentary Secretary at the Lord Chancellor's Department, and Consumer Affairs Minister Nigel Griffiths.

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