"Buying a home can be time-consuming, lengthy and stressful. Using smart data has the potential to make this quicker, more secure and more transparent for consumers when they are making the biggest, most important purchases of their lives"
- Liz Lloyd - digital economy minister
The Centre for Finance, Innovation and Technology (CFIT) has announced a new coalition that will support the UK Government’s plans to modernise the homebuying process in England and Wales. The initiative aims to reduce longstanding challenges, from collapsing chains to fees and fraudulent activity, by coordinating digital projects currently underway across the sector.
The Open Property Coalition is backed by the Smart Data team at the Department for Business and Trade (DBT). It will bring together organisations from both the public and private sectors, including the Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG), HM Land Registry, the Open Property Data Association (OPDA), real estate firms, financial institutions, regulators, conveyancers and technology companies.
The coalition will build on live pilots, published findings and stakeholder activity, while reviewing how Digital ID, tokenisation and trust frameworks could reshape the homebuying system. Its outputs will include a roadmap for a smart data scheme designed for property transactions, with a prototype solution also under consideration.
The current process remains lengthy and fragmented, with the average home purchase taking 22 weeks and 30% of transactions failing to complete. These outcomes are often associated with inconsistent practices and siloed information.
The OPDA reports that less than 1% of the data needed to purchase a home is available digitally. As a result, delays, duplication and inaccurate information can emerge at each stage between estate agents, surveyors, lenders, mortgage brokers and conveyancers.
The consequences affect both consumers and the wider economy. A recent study found that moving home is considered one of the most stressful major life events. According to industry estimates, 530,000 failed transactions occur in England and Wales each year, costing the economy £950 million.
Fees have also continued to increase for buyers and sellers, even when purchases collapse, with these costs alone totalling £560 million annually. Data silos have contributed to a higher risk of mortgage and conveyancing fraud, ranging from identity theft to payment diversion fraud. The challenges are also linked to inefficient allocation of existing housing stock, with homeowners discouraged from downsizing or upsizing.
As the coalition develops a proof of concept, CFIT plans to assess how more secure data-sharing could improve outcomes across the property market. The potential features of a new Open Property system could include a unique digital identifier for every home, real-time transaction updates for buyers and sellers, faster proof of funds, and pricing competition that enables lower conveyancing fees.
Other possibilities include improved underwriting that evaluates both property risk and buyer profiles, quicker distribution of funds and changes that could remove the need for a mortgage in principle.
“This is CFIT’s first cross-sector Coalition, spanning financial services and property, but it’s also the exact kind of thorny, interdependent problem that we exist to solve,” said Leon Ifayemi, director of coalitions and research at CFIT.
“Many of us have personally experienced how buying a home in England or Wales can be slow, opaque, costly and aggravating. Work is already underway from DBT, MHCLG, HM Land Registry and the OPDA to digitise elements of the process."
"But if we are going to successfully use technology to solve these pain points, we need policymakers, regulators and industry all to be pulling in the exact same direction. Tackling Open Property also means we can draw on our accumulated experience in areas like Open Finance and Digital ID.”
“Better use of smart data is integral to our future prosperity to help grow the economy,” said Liz Lloyd, digital economy minister. “Buying a home can be time-consuming, lengthy and stressful. Using smart data has the potential to make this quicker, more secure and more transparent for consumers when they are making the biggest, most important purchases of their lives.”
Terry Robertson, deputy director of strategy at HM Land Registry, added, “Digitising the home buying and selling process will bring huge benefits to everyone involved in the property sector. This transformation depends on collaboration."
"This is why HM Land Registry supports the CFIT-led Open Property Coalition, as well as other initiatives like the Digital Property Market Steering Group. Both are prime examples of bringing stakeholders together to address shared challenges across the transaction journey.”
CFIT’s earlier coalitions have examined smart data use in open finance, the role of a digital company ID in combating economic crime, and how technology could support lending to small and medium-sized enterprises.
