Moving house is “inefficient and frustrating” with as many as one in four home buyers saying they suffered financial loss as a result of the fall-through of their sale or purchase, according to research from legal technology incubator LawtechUK.
In the survey of 1,251 UK homeowners, carried out by YouGov in May 2026, 10% of the respondents said they felt they were “never getting the whole truth” from their conveyancer.
Poor communication and a lack of transparency have become the “defining failures of the UK home-buying experience” according to the Ministry of Justice-backed initiative, which offers a range of services for lawtech start-ups to develop concepts before taking them to market.
The survey also found 14% of respondents felt they had no visibility of what was going on throughout the process. A quarter (27%) of home buyers aged 35-44 said they found every stage of the process inefficient and frustrating.
A quarter of respondents (24%) said they had to chase solicitors and conveyancers for updates and the process took far longer than they were initially told to expect. Women were more likely to have chased solicitors for updates (29%) than men (22%) and describe the process as something happening to them rather than something they controlled (21% for women and 17% for men).
Scottish respondents reported much higher levels of satisfaction, with 42% saying they completed within the expected timeframe, 41% saying the process was handled professionally and 27% describing their solicitors as responsive and helpful.
The findings suggest that greater transparency and provision of key property information upfront creates a quicker, smoother and more predictable buying experience, LawtechUK said.
Chris Grant, LawtechUK panel member and managing director of client value at Goodwin, said: “This research points to the pressure that conveyancers are under. They are still operating a largely manual communication process under extreme capacity pressure, while buyers expect the real-time visibility they receive in every other area of their lives.
“However, the technology to bridge that gap already exists. Lawtech platforms offer consumer and business services, providing real-time case tracking, automated updates, digital document management, and shared dashboards, which also cut transaction times dramatically and reduce fall-through rates.”
The research suggests buyers are “ready for a different approach”, LawtechUK said. One in five respondents said they would actively seek out a conveyancer offering real-time updates if buying again. A further 17% said they would be willing to use a technology led service if it helped accelerate completion. That figure rises to 26% among buyers with two children in the household.
However, 13% of respondents were entirely unaware that tech-enabled conveyancing services already exist.
Konrad Rotthege is co-founder and CEO of proptech company Conveyo. She said: “Good solicitors are not the problem – the problem is the outdated, manual process they are often forced to work within.
“Buyers and sellers now expect visibility and control, but too much of the transaction still relies on chasing emails, fragmented information and manual updates.”
Home moving concierge service YouConvey provides proactive weekly updates 24-hour support and frees up solicitors “to focus on the legal title rather than administrative customer service”, founder Eddie Goldsmith said.
He added: “The UK’s current conveyancing model is simply not fit for purpose for 21st-century customers. Reducing timescales and making the home-moving process less stressful for customers has been our mission from day one… The result is a significantly faster journey to completion, typically reducing transaction times by five to six weeks compared with traditional industry averages.”
Grant concluded: “Younger generations have grown up with real-time banking, instant payments and digital services that provide continuous visibility. Yet many report receiving little information during one of the biggest financial transactions of their lives. The challenge for conveyancers is to adopt the digital solutions that can help the sector keep pace with modern consumer expectations.”
LawtechUK, which is delivered by CodeBase and Legal Geek, has helped secure millions of pounds of investment for legal technology start-ups, which aim to digitalise the conveyancing process.
