Corporate property trader Spring routinely completes transactions within a week. Co-CEO Shane Miller-Bourke says that while commercial transactions lend themselves to a more efficient process, the gap between commercial and residential property transaction timelines is unnecessarily wide.
The Land Registry’s digitalisation programme has created some improvements on performance in the residential space. That progress is welcome, and few would argue against modernising the infrastructure that underpins the UK property market. But focusing on digital upgrades alone risks missing the far more fundamental issue at the heart of why residential transactions routinely take more than six months to complete.
The real bottleneck is behavioural, not technical. Buyers, and more importantly their conveyancers and lenders, face no meaningful incentive to move faster. If anything, the system rewards caution, delay, and box‑ticking over efficiency. Reforms such as seller packs and digitising Land Registry processes are sensible initiatives in isolation. They may even shave a few days off the edges of the process. But they are not the reason transactions drag on, with conveyancing alone often consuming four months or more.
No viable alternative
When a seller becomes frustrated by slow progress, their only real recourse is to return to the market, an option that resets the clock and places them back at the mercy of the same sluggish system. Nothing in the current framework creates a market‑driven imperative for the slowest participants to improve their pace.
This is where reform must focus. At Spring, as a corporate property trader, we routinely complete property purchases within a week, because incentives are aligned and every party benefits from pace. If conveyancers and lenders had to compete with this standard, they would adapt – quickly.
Unfortunately, because stamp duty (SDLT) rules apply higher‑rate surcharges to traders except in narrow circumstances – even though we do not retain the homes we acquire – we are effectively prevented from providing our service to all but a small section of the market. As a result, most sellers are denied a viable alternative to slower buyers, and the competition required to drive positive change does not exist.
Speeding up the process
So, how is it possible to complete in such short time frames?
We are able to deliver fast and reliable purchase conveyancing timescales by combining more than two decades of property trading experience with strong solicitor partnerships, refined conveyancing activities and purpose‑built technology. Over the years, Spring has continually refined its operational model to minimise delays, anticipate risks, and maintain a consistent pace throughout every transaction.
A major driver of this is the exclusive use of commercially-minded solicitors who understand the company’s processes and appetite for risk. These legal partners use streamlined, trading‑informed pre‑contract enquiries and maintain a proactive, business‑focused approach that avoids unnecessary queries and supports tight timescales.
We ensure everyone is committed to completing efficiently, then use expedited searches and search indemnities. Supporting all of this is a custom-built CRM system, developed to enhance collaboration between solicitors, agents, vendors and internal teams. This ensures everyone knows what is outstanding and who needs to provide it at every point of the journey, rather that wasting time with endless calls and emails chasing each other in circles.
Achievable goals
All of this is, in fact, relatively simple and can be achieved with the current infrastructure – if all parties are committed to it.
While the average homeowner is not a cash buyer and does not have access to this level of process optimisation, commercial expertise or bespoke technology, the fact that transactions can be completed this quickly highlights a fundamental truth: the gap between what is common and what is possible is unnecessarily wide, and the wider market should not accept protracted timelines as an inevitability. It might not take three days but it could be three weeks, not three months.
If policymakers want to transform the home‑moving experience, they must look beyond digitalisation and tackle the structural incentives that keep the system slow. Without that shift, even the best technology will only ever paper over the cracks.
About the author
Shane Miller-Bourke is Co-CEO of national property buying company Spring, which aims to revolutionise the way residential property is sold in the UK by offering homeowners a guaranteed sale on a date of their choice. Shane has a background in corporate finance and at Spring he oversees the group’s core property trading activity and manages the financing necessary to acquire and trade up to £300 million of property assets annually.
2 responses
I’m sorry, but the author of this article is clearly talking out of his back side. Does he ever mention buying leasehold? estate service charges? third party management companies? surveys? when did he start the clock ticking?
No conveyancer wants their client’s transaction to fall through – to those of you reading this – do remember that conveyancers are your guardians. We are not purposely throwing in delays or ticking boxes. We need to ensure things are done properly and yes, you are spending someone else’s money when you are NOT a cash buyer. Be mindful of the fact that lenders have to do their due diligence.
This article does a great job breaking down what’s really happening in the residential market right now. It’s easy to think “things are slow” because of headlines, but when you look at the data on new listings, demand, and average selling times, the picture gets a lot more nuanced. For buyers and sellers alike, understanding that the market isn’t just one thing, it’s really about local conditions is so important. That clarity helps people make smarter decisions instead of reacting to fear or hype.