A report commissioned by the Digital Property Market Steering Group (DPMSG) has identified ‘numerous opportunities for improvement’ in the property transaction process.
The Data Standards Report Spring 2025, produced by digital insight company TPXimpact and published earlier this month, describes ‘significant inefficiencies’ in the current system, including at least eight parties for each transaction, 130 documents per transaction and widespread duplication.
The findings define three critical pre-requisites for innovation in the property market: trust, incentives and digitisation. Trust will help to decrease the duplication of effort throughout the transaction process, incentives will enable the process to work in parallel rather than sequentially and foster innovation, and digitisation will reduce errors and enable transformative innovations, the report notes.
‘The complexity of the property market requires all stakeholders, including government through MHCLG, HM Land Registry and DSIT’s leadership, to work together’, DPMSG said.
“This collaborative approach is the only way to address a socioeconomic challenge of this magnitude and deliver the systemic change needed for a more efficient property market.
“This report marks the beginning of a crucial conversation about the future of property transactions. The evidence shows that transformation is not only possible but essential for serving the public interest in a more effective, secure, and accessible property market.”
The scope of the research included data standards, data services and governance in both residential and commercial land and property. The independent analysis involved extensive consultation with organisations across the property sector and includes international benchmarks from Norway, Australia and Scotland – although the authors acknowledge broader engagement was limited by a three-month research window.
The report has been welcomed by the Open Property Data Association (OPDA), who said the it provides an evidence-based case for the adoption of shared data standards to ensure interoperability across the property sector.
‘Crucially, it recommends that government, industry and DPMSG work with OPDA to co-create the trust framework that will underpin the future of smart property data and home buying’, the organisation said.
“The research references the work of OPDA’s member firms, recognising their contribution to essential innovation and driving adoption of data standards while highlighting the success of those who are already transforming the homebuying process through collaboration. It also echoes OPDA’s calls for standardisation and collective governance to ensure the customer experience is modernised at every level.”
OPDA chair Maria Harris added:
“This report provides a clear and independent perspective: data, trust and interoperability standards are the foundations of the property market’s future. The recommendation for government and industry to work with OPDA on co-creating the trust framework reflects the progress our members have already made, and the vital role standards will play in enabling a simpler, faster and more secure homebuying process. Delivering this change is inevitable and the best way for us to predict the future is to create it.”
DMSG is holding a workshop to discuss the findings of the report and collate feedback from the sector. The in-person event will be held on 11th September in London – for further details see https://geovation.uk/events/dpmsg-roundtable-data-report/
2 responses
It was Rudyard Kipling who said in his wonderful poem ‘If’:
“If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too:
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise;”
Property lawyers across the property spectrum will read this article and wonder what on earth is DPMSG going on about?
Lets be polite. Lets use the word ‘falsehood’ instead of lie . What are these ‘130 documents’? . The statement implies that modern property lawyers spend all their time slowing down homebuying by laboriously sending documents in the post to clients and other lawyers. This is a falsehood. Furthermore no matter how hard I try I cannot reconcile this number with the truth.
As a locum I do not recognise the picture painted of conveyancing by the DPMSG report. “Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored” Aldous Huxley once observed. The facts are that you cannot keep pretending that homebuying is like buying a can of baked beans.
I wish DMPSG and OPDA would stop spouting nonsense. It’s clear none of them are qualified conveyancers and the length of transaction times has got nothing to do with ‘bits of information’. Wake up and stop believing government propaganda and shame on Today’s Conveyancer for publishing such lunacy.