Lloyds Banking Group, Connells Group & LMS partner to launch fully digital homebuyer service
Lloyds Banking Group, the UK’s biggest mortgage lender, Connells Group, the UK’s leading estate agency, and LMS, the UK’s leading provider of conveyancing, are partnering to launch a fully digital homebuying service, set to reshape the way homes are bought and sold across England and Wales.
It is widely recognised that the current homebuying process is slow, fragmented and repetitive, with an 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 and uncertainty from the process.
The partnership marks the first phase of a revolutionary 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.
What problems is the digital homebuying service designed to solve?
The current homebuying process is well known for creating unnecessary friction through multiple steps, duplicated checks and long wait times. The majority of the 1.2 million yearly homebuyers say buying a home is the most stressful experience. On average, it takes over five months to complete a purchase, and around one in four transactions collapse during the 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.”
Steve Reed, Housing Secretary
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, such as searches, title and source of funds, that cause delays or the transaction to fall through.
- Long periods of uncertainty, with poor communication and transparency on progress.
- Manual, paper-based or email-driven processes that increase stress and require rework.
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, known as NPTN, a shared data-exchange platform.
How will the digital homebuying service improve the experience for customers?
The service is built to eliminate the points of frustration and failure that make moving home stressful and cut weeks of waiting and uncertainty from the process. Compared to today’s journey, customers should benefit from a slicker, quicker, clearer and simpler process:
- Sellers will become “digital sale ready” earlier, with property, ID and material information captured up front by Moverly.
- Source of funds checks by Armalytix will be made earlier in the process, confirming buyers’ ability to buy sooner.
- There will be fewer steps to complete, for example, ID verification required once, removing repetitive requests later.
- Searches will be provided with the property listing, minimising late surprises.
- The conveyancer will have access to key information, including ID, searches and source of funds, reducing paperwork and speeding up conveyancing.
- Customers will get a smoother journey between parties, fewer questions, less chasing and less worry.
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, known as PDTF, enabling adoption at scale.
“The industry has spent years diagnosing the problem. NPTN is infrastructure that delivers the solution — a serious move away from siloed processes and toward genuine market-wide reform.”
Nick Chadbourne, CEO at LMS
The service is supported by Moverly, Novus Strategy, Credas, TM Group and Armalytix, the market-leading financial intelligence provider. It aims to replace fragmented, siloed information sharing with a live, secure network that allows trusted data to move easily but securely across the transaction.
If you are an estate agent and would like to learn about how NPTN can help your agency, visit the LMS information page.
