Lloyds Banking Group, LMS and Connells Group have launched a fully digital home buying service, which the partners say will reshape the way homes are bought and sold across England and Wales.
The digital homebuyer service has been developed to eliminate the points of frustration and cut weeks of waiting and uncertainty from the process, the partners say.
“The process of buying or selling your home is too stressful, too slow, too laborious, and often collapses through no fault of your own,” said Andrew Asaam, homes director at Lloyds Banking Group. “With this new digital service, we aim to cut the stress, increase the speed, reduce the workload for customers and limit the number of transactions that fall through. This could change the way we buy and sell homes.”
The service runs on residential sale and purchase transactions within England and Wales involving Connells branches, LMS-panel conveyancers, and Lloyds Banking Group as the lender.
Using LMS’s National Property Transaction Network (NPTN), property, identity and financial information will be captured once early in the transaction process and reused by all parties, to remove the need to provide the same information multiple times and reduce manual paper-based or e-mail driven processes.
The network is already operational and built on agreed standards aligned to the Property Data Trust Framework (PDTF), enabling adoption at scale.
The launch marks the first phase of national network of conveyancers, agents, lenders and surveyors that will deliver a live end‑to‑end digitally enabled home sale and purchase journey intended to change the sequence and timing of key steps in the property transaction.
The service is supported by Moverly, Novus Strategy, Credas, TM Group and Armalytix and aims to replace fragmented, siloed information sharing.
Property, ID and material information will be captured up-front by Moverly, with source of funds checks carried out by Armalytix earlier in the process. Conveyancers will have access to key information including ID, searches and source of funds.
Mike Ward, chairman at Armalytix, said: “Anyone who’s bought or sold a home will recognise the frustration of being asked for the same documents again and again, especially when it comes to proving where your money is coming from. What often slows things down is that these financial checks happen later in the process, after an offer is already on the table.
“What’s interesting about this pilot is the move to complete those checks earlier and share them across the transaction. If done at scale, that could make home moving faster, reduce the risk of deals falling through, and create a much more straightforward experience for buyers and sellers.”
Housing secretary Steve Reed said: “Too many people who have bought or sold a home will know this feeling all too well – months of waiting, chasing and worrying, with sales liable to fall through at any moment. It can quickly become a living nightmare.
“It doesn’t need to be this difficult and that is why we have set out bold proposals to shakeup the home buying and selling process.
“I’m pleased to see Lloyds Banking Group, Connells Group and LMS showing what’s possible by getting the right information to the right people earlier, cutting the delays and uncertainty that make moving home so stressful.”
Earlier this week it was revealed the average time to exchange had reached 134 days, or 4.4 months. Just under a quarter of all transactions fall through, although the rates fell marginally in the first quarter of 2026 according to TwentyCi data.
2 responses
This new “digital homebuying service” masks some uncomfortable truths. For those who care about the integrity of the homebuying system, the timing, the actors, and the structural risks should be setting off alarms. Connells was only last year the subject of a BBC Panorama exposé for conditional selling and dubious steering practices.
The minister quoted speaks of transparency and consumer benefit, yet this comes from a government facing persistent questions about integrity and accountability. Its backing of a model that centralises commercial power and weakens professional independence should be treated with scepticism.
The consultation on homebuying reform has not concluded, yet major lenders appear to be pressing ahead, shifting from lending panel managers to data‑driven gatekeepers. This is not modernisation; it is pre‑emptive market‑shaping before Parliament or regulators have even debated and set the legal framework.
Panel law firms are being drawn into conveyancing ecosystems where independence is diluted, professional judgment is subordinated to platform workflow, and the lender–platform nexus becomes the real client. The profession is being nudged from independent adviser to a mere compliance function inside someone else’s pipeline. The cost is professional autonomy and ultimately public trust.
Behind the branding lies a deeper concern. This model creates conflicts of interest on an industrial scale. When the same commercial ecosystem influences who the consumer uses, how work is allocated, what data is captured and who benefits financially, the safeguards that protect the integrity of title are not strengthened. They are hollowed out.
If the homebuying system is to remain fair and genuinely competitive, one principle must remain sacrosanct. Technology must serve independent professional judgement, not quietly replace it.
I couldn’t agree more with Stephen Larcombe. This move should not be applauded it should be viewed with the utmost concern. This is taking the notion of a conflict of interests to another level. My firm banks with LLoyds Banking Group and to say they have been unsupportive is an understatement. Now I know why, I am effectively in competition with them. Any Conveyancer worth their salt will be balking at the firms who form this conglomerate, Conveyancing Direct, Countrywide, Connells need we say more! Is anyone awake as I can see the Emperor in plain sight with no clothes on and I can’t be the only one!