An initiative which launched last year and set out eight industry commitments to facilitate “faster, more certain property transactions” is opening its doors to membership and inviting property organisations of all sizes to play a part in improving the home buying and selling process.
Launched in September 2025, Project 28 is the work of 23 organisations across the property sector spanning lending, conveyancing and estate agents. Participating organisations include high street lenders HSBC, Lloyds Banking Group, Nationwide, estate agents Connells Group and Yopa, legal service providers AConveyancing and Evolve Law, and technology providers TwentyCi, LMS and Landmark Information Group (the full list of participants is included at the end of this article).
It now says it is opening membership as it seeks to build on “traction among estate agents, conveyancers, lenders, brokers and data providers seeking to address longstanding inefficiencies in the transaction process and improve certainty for both consumers and professionals.” The campaign has also been recognised at the 2026 PRCA Public Affairs Awards, winning Corporate & Brand Campaign of the Year.
A video accompanies the launch of membership outlining the scale of the issues facing home moving with transactions currently take an average of 112 days from sale agreed to exchange, and an estimated £1 billion of wasted effort annually said, Simon Brown, CEO, Landmark Information Group. He added:
“The Project 28 Charter represents a collective commitment to rethinking the property transactions process. By opening membership, we’re inviting the wider industry to be part of a more collaborative, digital-first approach; one that reduces friction, increases certainty and ultimately transforms the experience of moving home.”
Project 28’s ambition is to reduce transaction timescales to 28 days from sold subject to contract to exchange. The charter sets out eight practical commitments that focus on earlier instruction, upfront provision of key property information and improved coordination across the transaction lifecycle.
- Early instruction of seller-side conveyancer – ensuring legal work begins at listing.
- Provision of relevant upfront information and condition reports – reducing delays and surprises.
- Ensuring data collection and availability – supporting faster, informed decisions.
- Ensuring trusted data – improving confidence through reliable sources.
- Access to a secure, interoperable data repository – giving all parties real-time access to key documents.
- Early commissioning of leasehold packs – avoiding late-stage legal delays.
- A recognisable mark to indicate best practice – helping property professionals and consumers identify best practice.
- A quality fee for quality service – ensuring professionals are fairly remunerated.
The campaign has already garnered support from organisations which are collectively responsible for annual transactions supporting over £600 billion of mortgage assets, support estate agents in bringing more than half of total listings to market, process in excess of one million search and environmental reports per annum and have three touch points on average for every property transaction.
More information about Project 28 and the opportunity to become a member is available on its website.
3 responses
This is no Magna Carta. This new Charter, promising “faster, more certain transactions” sounds attractive. But most of its commitments overlook the realities that actually govern conveyancing.
Early instruction. Starting before a buyer exists doesn’t accelerate the legal work that depends on lenders, chains, and confirmed instructions.
Upfront information. Early‑stage documents starved of context often need rewriting once the real transaction begins.
More data. Data flow isn’t the bottleneck. Statutory checks, lender conditions and human judgement are.
“Trusted” data. Trust comes from legal accountability, not from a shared platform.
Shared repositories. Visibility isn’t verification. Different parties have different duties, risks, and regulators.
Earlier coordination. You can’t coordinate away probate, leasehold defects, valuation issues, or chain fragility.
Digital‑first. Digital tools reduce admin, not legal complexity.
28‑day target. A timeline that ignores law, lenders, and chains isn’t a target — it’s a sales pitch.
And perhaps that’s the real issue. The Charter feels driven more by lawtech commercial ambition than by the integrity of property law or the professional standards that protect the public.
It’s worth asking ourselves: is this really what motivated us to qualify?
This cartel is clearly deluded. 28 days ain’t gonna happen when you have a third party involved now on nearly every single transaction. Developers have set up management companies on every site for about 25 – 30 years meaning that any information they get at the outset will be out of date so quickly and sellers will most likely be paying x2 for these packs which cost as much as conveyancing fees.
Clients don’t want to instruct lawyers until they know they have a definite sale/purchase.
You can’t “trust” any data that is being provided – let’s see – fake EWS1s, piles of missing information (that the untrained eye won’t see (and yes there will be many conveyancers offering to put these packs together but they won’t check the legal title or won’t spot a legal issue that someone else does – needless to say we cannot now trust Building Regulations Certificates provided by developers for construction of houses, Councils allowing developers to build on known flood plains, infrastructure being handed over to poor residents who don’t have a clue what they’ve been given as guess what, it’s easier to hand it over privately so the developers don’t have to pay the Council).
The biggest question remains – why have Trading Standards sat on their hands not prosecuted Connells Group for flagrant breaches of the rules and mounting evidence from the BBC that they have been conditional selling? (Perhaps Today’s Conveyancer could do some investigative journalism for a change instead of paid adverts.) This is not going to undo the blockage. It sounds more like they’re adding junk food and ultra processed foods which will block the pipe even more and it’s going to take a strong unblocking solution to remove the 💩 (which does not include the use of tech).
This is an interesting initiative, and the aim of improving coordination and client experience is clearly positive.
However, looking at the make-up of the membership, particularly the law firms, it does appear to lean toward high-volume conveyancing models.
I may be wrong, but in our experience as an independent high street law firm, those are often the transactions where delays arise, not at the outset, but when something non-standard appears. Where the person handling the file does not have the experience or authority to deal with complexity, matters tend to stall. It would be useful to understand how this model addresses that.
There is also a question around market balance. Some high-volume firms have, over a number of years, attracted consistently poor consumer feedback, yet their position remains strong, often through lender relationships. Does this type of initiative risk reinforcing that dynamic rather than creating a more level playing field?
On “certainty”, it is difficult to see how upfront information can be relied upon unless it has been legally verified. Many issues only emerge years after completion, which is precisely why the profession carries six years’ PII run-off. What, in practical terms, has changed in the underlying risk?
Similarly, is there a risk that indemnity policies are used more frequently to keep transactions moving, rather than resolving the root cause? That may assist in the short term, but could store up issues for later.
It would also be helpful to understand how membership interacts with referral arrangements. Does it replace them, sit alongside them, or create a network through which work is preferentially channelled?
A few practical points would also be useful:
• What is the cost of membership?
• How is liability allocated if shared or upfront data proves to be inaccurate?
Improving co-ordination is clearly positive. The real question is whether this model genuinely reduces risk, or whether it simply makes the process appear smoother at the outset, while leaving the underlying issues to emerge later.