Lloyds Banking Group has partnered with Connells Group and LMS to launch a fully digital homebuying service.
With a current average time to completion of five months, the digital homebuyer service has been developed to eliminate the points of frustration and cut weeks of waiting from the process.
The partnership marks the first phase of a national network of agents, lenders, conveyancers, and surveyors that will deliver a live end-to-end digitally enabled home sale and purchase journey that changes the sequence and timing of key steps in the property transaction.
Issues customers commonly raise about the homebuying process include being asked to provide the same information multiple times to different parties, late discovery of issues that cause delays or the transaction to fall through, long periods of uncertainty with poor communication and transparency on progress, and manual paper-based or email driven processes.
The digital homebuying service aims to tackle these issues by moving critical checks and information earlier in the process and sharing them digitally between relevant parties using LMS’s National Property Transaction Network (NPTN), a shared data-exchange platform.
What does the digital homebuying service involve?
The service runs on residential sale and purchase transactions within England and Wales, involving Connells branches, LMS panel conveyancers, and Lloyds Banking Group as the lender.
Using LMS’s NPTN, property, identity, and financial information can be captured once and then reused by all parties involved in the transaction, the service brings together estate agents, brokers, conveyancers, and lenders earlier in the process. The network is already operational and built on agreed standards aligned to the Property Data Trust Framework (PDTF), enabling adoption at scale.
The service is supported by Moverly, Novus Strategy, Credas, TM Group and Armalytix, and aims to replace fragmented, siloed information sharing with a live, secure network that allows trusted data to move easily but securely across the transaction.
Sellers will become “digital sale ready” earlier, with property, ID and material information captured up front by Moverly. There will also be fewer steps to complete, for example, ID verification required once, removing repetitive requests for them later.
Source of funds checks by Armalytix, made earlier in the process, will confirm buyers’ ability to buy sooner and searches provided with the property listing aim to minimise late surprises.
In addition, the conveyancer has access to key information (ID, searches, source of funds), reducing paperwork and speeding up conveyancing.
Housing Secretary, Steve Reed said: "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.”
Frances Cassidy, head of strategic and technology partnerships at Lloyds Banking Group, commented: “Transforming the homebuying journey is about making one of the most important transactions in a customer’s life simpler, faster and more transparent. Our work with Connells Group and LMS shows what’s possible when estate agents, conveyancers and brokers work closely together, creating a more joined up experience and greater certainty for everyone involved.”
Chris Rosindale, chief operating officer at Connells Group, said: “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.”
