"This Charter sets a bold, practical path towards achieving a 28-day target from sale agreed to exchange, delivering faster, more certain transactions that benefit everyone: buyers, sellers, and the professionals who support them"
- Verona Frankish - Yopa
A coalition of 23 leading organisations across the UK property sector has launched Project 28: A Charter for faster, more certain property transactions. The initiative sets out a framework for change, targeting a 28-day period from sale agreed to exchange, and aims to deliver greater efficiency, certainty, and economic benefit.
The Charter highlights the scale of inefficiency in the current system, where transaction delays cost movers around £400 million annually in fall-throughs, while estate agents and conveyancers lose up to £1 billion of wasted effort each year. This is equivalent to around four million working days.
At its core, the Charter promotes digitisation and improved data sharing to streamline transactions. By encouraging adoption of secure, interoperable data repositories and ensuring relevant upfront information is provided, the group intends to establish a digital-first process for property transactions.
Member organisations collectively support over £600 billion of mortgage assets annually, help estate agents bring more than half of listings to market, and process more than one million search and environmental reports each year. On average, the organisations have three points of contact for every property transaction.
The Charter is built around eight commitments designed to improve transparency, cut inefficiency, and build trust between buyers and sellers. The central ambition is to shorten the average time between sale agreed and exchange to 28 days. According to Landmark Information Group’s latest Property Transactions Report, this period averaged 109 days in 2024, down from 115 days in 2023, but still longer than in both 2019 (92 days) and 2007 (66 days).
Key commitments include:
increasing provision of upfront data,
boosting use of secure, interoperable data repositories,
promoting visible best practice through a recognisable marque.
“Project 28: A Charter for faster, more certain property transactions is a pivotal moment for the property industry, a united response to a system that has, for too long, been too siloed, let down consumers and slowed economic progress,” said Simon Brown, CEO of Landmark Information Group. “Landmark is proud to drive forward this change, bringing the right people, data and insights together across the entire transaction chain, as part of this industry-led initiative. Sitting at the centre of the property ecosystem, Landmark has been uniquely positioned to lead the development of practical, immediate commitments that will improve speed, certainty and trust. This Charter offers a realistic path to meaningful reform. We now urge Government and the wider market to act with us in transforming the experience for home movers across the UK.”
“Buying or selling a home should be exciting, not exhausting,” explained Verona Frankish, CEO of Yopa. “Yet too often, consumers face uncertainty, wasted time, and unnecessary costs because of outdated processes. At Yopa, we believe the industry has a responsibility to work together to change that."
"This Charter sets a bold, practical path towards achieving a 28-day target from sale agreed to exchange, delivering faster, more certain transactions that benefit everyone: buyers, sellers, and the professionals who support them. By embracing digital solutions, improving transparency, and aligning best practice, we can transform the moving experience and restore trust in the process and our industry. Yopa is proud to stand alongside our industry peers in making this ambition a reality, and we’re ready to play our part.”
“This industry-wide initiative is much needed, to help speed up house buying and selling and make the process smoother, more secure and more transparent,” noted Nick Hale, CEO of Movera. “With the average transaction currently taking more than 100 days to complete, it’s clear that the UK property market needs significant reform and we all need to work together to achieve the proposed 28-day transaction target.”
“Visibility and transparency are the bookends of the property industry,” commented Justin Parkinson, managing director of Decision First, which operates Lender Exchange. “Without them, expectations are set too high leading to unnecessary disappointment and frustration. With them, all parties involved know where they stand and what to expect."
"The Project 28 Charter, the commitments set out in it, and the support of the companies signed up to the Charter are the foundations for providing much needed transparency across all aspects of the transaction, from listing, through valuation, mortgage offer, right through to completions and post completion registration, and we’re delighted to lend our support to this charter.”
