Over the past 12 months, much of the conversation around the housing market has focused on affordability, transaction volumes, and buyer confidence. Less visible, but just as influential, is what has been happening behind the scenes in conveyancing.
The amount of work attached to each transaction has continued to rise, even where overall volumes have remained flat. More documentation, deeper financial checks, and tighter scrutiny have become the norm.
At the same time, many firms are operating with fewer experienced conveyancers than they would like. As the industry looks toward 2026, it is becoming clear that financial verification, rather than pricing or demand alone, is setting the pace of the market.
Digital ID
Digital identity checks in property buying are no longer new. Most buyers now expect to complete ID verification online, whether that involves scanning documents, taking selfies or completing checks on a mobile device. For law firms, this has removed some of the friction that once slowed early onboarding.
But in a property transaction, identity does not stop at confirming who someone is. It also requires proving where their money came from, and that is where complexity still lives.
Source of Funds and Source of Wealth checks require buyers to explain savings histories, gifts, investments, bonuses or equity, and to evidence those explanations clearly. These checks are more intrusive, more nuanced, and far harder to shortcut. While digital ID has streamlined one layer of the process, financial verification remains the point where many files slow down.
Buyer behaviour
One of the most significant changes in recent years has been how willing buyers are to engage digitally with financial checks. Only a few years ago, fewer than half of clients would connect their bank accounts digitally, preferring to upload statements or send paperwork instead. That picture has now flipped.
Adoption of Open Banking for Source of Funds checks has risen above 90% in many of the cases we see. Buyers are more comfortable sharing verified data, particularly when the purpose is clearly explained and the process is well signposted.
This shift has materially changed how quickly financial evidence can be reviewed. Verified account data can be accessed in near real-time, rather than being chased, received, and manually reconciled over days or weeks. For the wider market, that translates into fewer stalled transactions and less uncertainty late in the process.
Faster does not mean friction-free
There is a temptation to talk about “frictionless” compliance, but in property, that idea rarely holds up in practice. A robust financial check will always involve some effort from the buyer. They are the only person who knows the full story behind their funds, and regulators expect that story to be supported by evidence. The goal is not to remove friction altogether, but to ensure that the friction that does exist serves a purpose.
Where processes are structured, buyers tend to engage more willingly. When they are asked for the same information repeatedly, or without explanation, frustration quickly sets in. The difference between the two approaches can easily amount to days, or even weeks, in transaction timelines.
Risk still concentrates at the end of the chain
Despite improvements earlier in the process, conveyancers remain the point at which most risk ultimately lands. If something is missed or challenged, liability does not tend to travel evenly across the chain.
Even where identity checks have been carried out earlier by another party, conveyancers often feel compelled to repeat or deepen those checks to satisfy their own regulatory and insurance obligations. Standards such as Safe Harbour and wider Digital ID frameworks are great initiatives, but only when they are applied consistently enough for firms to rely on them with confidence.
This imbalance is one reason there is more discussion across the industry about better sharing of compliance information between estate agents, brokers, lenders and legal teams. With government pressure mounting to speed up transactions, repeating the same checks multiple times is becoming more difficult to justify.
The challenge for the next phase of reform is enabling information to move more cleanly across the chain without weakening standards.
What this means for the market in 2026
Looking ahead, several trends are likely to shape how property transactions function over the next year:
● Financial checks will attract more scrutiny, not less. High-profile fraud cases and regulatory focus mean Source of Funds will continue to be a central concern.
● Digital processes will be expected by default. Buyers who are prepared early will move faster than those encountering these checks for the first time mid-transaction.
● The gap between firms will widen. Those with structured, digital workflows will continue to reduce delays, while manual processes struggle to keep pace.
● Coordination across the chain will matter more. Where information can be reused safely and consistently, timelines will shorten, and outcomes will be clearer for clients.
For the housing market as a whole, the pace of transactions is now shaped as much by financial verification as by demand or pricing. Understanding where pressures sit and how they can be managed will be essential for keeping deals moving in 2026.
