Housing secretary Steve Reed has commended Connells Group, Lloyds Banking Group and LMS after the organisations launched what they describe as the first fully digital homebuyer service aimed at speeding up property transactions across England and Wales.
The initiative is designed to streamline the traditionally complex homebuying process by integrating estate agency, mortgage and conveyancing services into a more connected digital workflow, reducing reliance on paper-based administration and manual handoffs between parties.
By linking lenders, agents and legal services more directly, the platform aims to cut delays that typically arise during conveyancing and mortgage processing, which are often cited as key causes of fall-throughs and extended completion timelines in the UK housing market.
Reed commented: “Too many people who have bought or sold a home will know this feeling all too well – months of waiting, chasing and worrying, with sales liable to fall through at any moment. It can quickly become a living nightmare.
“It doesn’t need to be this difficult and that is why we have set out bold proposals to shakeup the home buying and selling process.
“I’m pleased to see Lloyds Banking Group, Connells Group and LMS showing what’s possible by getting the right information to the right people earlier, cutting the delays and uncertainty that make moving home so stressful.”
The announcement comes amid wider government and industry pressure to improve transaction times and increase efficiency in the homebuying system, which is frequently criticised for being slow and fragmented compared with other countries.
Reed’s endorsement highlights growing support for digitisation across the housing sector, with policymakers and industry leaders increasingly focused on reducing friction in the sales process and improving certainty for buyers and sellers.
The current homebuying process is often criticised for repeated information requests, limited transparency and delays caused by late discovery of issues during conveyancing. Buyers and sellers frequently report being asked to provide the same documents multiple times, alongside uncertainty over progress and a reliance on manual, paper-based workflows.
The partners say the new system is designed to address these issues by ensuring critical checks and documentation are completed earlier and shared digitally through LMS National Property Transaction Network (NPTN), a shared data exchange platform already in operation across parts of the industry.
By enabling verified information to be reused across the transaction, the system aims to reduce administrative duplication and limit delays caused by late-stage issues such as searches, identity verification or proof of funds.
Under the new model, sellers will be required to become “digital sale ready” at an earlier stage, with property details, identity verification and relevant documentation captured upfront via Moverly.
Buyers will undergo source-of-funds checks earlier in the process through Armalytix, allowing affordability and financial readiness to be confirmed sooner. Identity verification will be completed once and then reused across parties, reducing repeat requests.
In addition, property searches will be made available alongside listings where possible, with the aim of reducing the risk of late-stage surprises that can delay or derail transactions.
Conveyancers will also have earlier access to verified data, including identity and financial information, helping to reduce manual processing and shorten turnaround times.
The service operates across residential sales and purchases in England and Wales involving Connells branches, LMS-panel conveyancers and Lloyds Banking Group as lender.
Using LMS’s NPTN, the platform allows property, identity and financial data to be captured once and shared securely between authorised parties. The system is aligned with the Property Data Trust Framework (PDTF), with the partners stating it has been designed for wider industry adoption.
The initiative also involves technology partners including Credas, TM Group and Novus Strategy, alongside Moverly and Armalytix, with the aim of replacing fragmented information flows with a more continuous, data-led transaction process.
Andrew Asaam, homes director, Lloyds Banking Group, said: “The process of buying or selling your home is too stressful, too slow, too laborious, and often collapses through no fault of your own. With this new digital service, we aim to cut the stress, increase the speed, reduce the workload for customers and limit the number of transactions that fall through. This could change the way we buy and sell homes.”
Chris Rosindale, COO at Connells Group, commented: “Society needs a faster, more reliable, fully digitised housing transaction system that increases certainty, reduces fall-throughs and supports housing mobility. We believe in reform that makes the system faster, more transparent and more reliable and are excited to be part of transformation in the sector.”
Nick Chadbourne, CEO at LMS, added: “The industry has spent years diagnosing the problem. NPTN is infrastructure that delivers the solution. This initiative signals a serious move away from siloed processes and toward genuine market-wide reform.”
“Under the new model, sellers will be required to become “digital sale ready” at an earlier stage, with property details, identity verification and relevant documentation captured upfront.”
A digital HIP?
Which firm or firms will be providing the “legal services”? What about chains? How will this roll out to non Connell and non Lloyds cutomers?
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Comment removed.
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good luck with that!
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And this is going to be a FREE service?
Or is it going to be FFN – or Free For Now.
The usual way of business today is to burn investor money setting up a “solution” that people didn’t know they wanted.
Think Uber, or perhaps Rightmove.
Then you outspend the competition to get yourself into a position of virtual monopoly. Prices get hiked and everyone gets screwed.
Again, think Uber or Rightmove.
Originally, the Land Registry could have provided this service, but guess what…? They’ve been privatised. And, go on, guess what’s happened to the prices… You got it, they’ve skyrocketed.
I don’t know LMS and have zero skin in the game. But I can imagine the comments in 20 years time when they become the new Rightmove and scalp their customers almost to oblivion.
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I had a long reply typed out as LMS have been around for 30 years and are very large in the tech space between lenders and conveyancers, but, my comment above was removed for ‘promoting a service or business’ in responding to some valid questions from Collaborator, so i suspect the same will happen if i post. I’m always open to a conversation!
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It’s called enshittification, a term coined by author and activist Cory Doctorow to describe the deliberate, incremental degradation of online platforms and digital services. It occurs when platforms, having locked in users, shift their value toward shareholders, first exploiting users for business customers, then exploiting business customers for themselves. Think most digital services which we all use daily such as entertainment, email, most if not all digital services try to tie you into monthly subscription costs. In isolation they are small but combined they add up to a lot of pennies.
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Exactly that.
Left in the hands of a for profit capitalistic venture, such a service is doomed to enshitification.
That’s really bad for the future of property transactions. REALLY BAD!
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