We have been thinking about this backwards.
The conversation about electrification has been aimed at consumers. Educate the buyer. Change the buyer's behaviour. Hope the buyer does the maths.
But the buyer is sitting across from a seller at the most financially significant moment of their life. And the seller says nothing.
Three thousand houses change hands in Britain every day. Not one conversation about insulation, heating, solar, or batteries. Not one.
The moment passes. The house is bought. The boiler stays. The opportunity — the cheapest moment that household will ever have to finance the transition — is gone.
This is not a consumer problem. It is a seller problem.
We know from behavioural economics that defaults are the most powerful policy instrument available. Not mandates, not taxes, not information campaigns. Defaults. The conversation that happens automatically because it is part of the process.
The mortgage rate is the cheapest money most households will ever access. That is the moment. Not next year. Not when the grant window reopens. Now. At the table. With the broker.
Make that conversation happen at every mortgage appointment. Every car finance agreement. Every renovation loan. The seller asks the question. The number is on the screen. The default is yes.
When diesel costs a fortune and gas bills jumped fifty percent in a week, electrification is not ideology. It is arithmetic. Show the household a number that makes the house cheaper to run and they will take it.
Point the nudge at the seller. The buyer takes care of itself.