In October, top property industry leaders gathered at the annual Digital Conveyancing Summit to discuss key property transaction trends to expect in coming years – discussing everything from council houses to quantum security threats.
Search Acumen held a panel event for its audience of 500 property lawyers, consisting of its managing director, Andrew Lloyd; EMEA executive director of Technology at JLL, Will Cohen; executive director at the Urban Land Institute, Imogen Thompson; and chief knowledge & innovation officer at Freeths, Nick Pryor.
Moderated by The Financial Times’ property correspondent, Julie Steinberg, the panel explored how commercial real estate can future-proof itself against the technological and economic forces reshaping the property and investment markets over the next five years. The panel sparked big questions for the lawyers in the room.
The year so far – damp squib
Imogen: “Our recent ULI sentiment survey revealed a lot of negativity in the market – this is not just Budget-related. Systemic issues, including interest rates and viability challenges, are slowing economic recovery. People expected a financially better 2026, and that buoyant attitude of January and February has ebbed away.”
Andrew: “The year has still followed the usual seasonal pattern, but increases have been softer than usual. Having expected a year full of excitement, it feels like a damp squib. Firms are still getting quotes for data ahead of big projects but are then delaying their decisions for longer than would have once been standard – we’re seeing clients’ clients delaying their decision-making.
“It points to uncertainty being our new normal, and this is where technology can help navigate these policy changes, from predicting investment behaviour at the top level, to risk mapping a building ahead of a deal to be on the front foot of changing regulation.”
Public sector playing a vital role
Imogen: “At the moment, the public sector doesn’t always have the funding or expertise, whilst the private sector needs the public sector to be on board for unlocking land, securing planning permission and having policy support. I think a huge shift is on the horizon in the volume of public-private partnerships.
“Devolution in particular might deliver some benefits but is not a panacea – if we are going to kickstart growth through public-private partnerships, a holistic view of infrastructure is essential, and we have to understand that real estate is not just housing or commercial buildings but also the infrastructure (social, transport, educational) that supports it. Devolution does offer opportunities for development at a regional scale, but this may raise some challenges from a data standpoint.”
Andrew: “We’ve seen a deliberate policy-led rise of corporate landlords in the social housing sector over the last decade – and are now seeing the reverse through an impetus to move council housebuilding to the public sector. However, it has been 30 years since councils have actually been building at any real scale. At the same time, the new build market is softening because of decreasing land values and sale prices. The result is that public and private sectors will need to work together to meet targets, particularly for those local authority areas that have the most pressing housing needs.
“A key problem is that there aren’t currently any frameworks to enable that to happen and these will need to be created which will take a lot of time: sites must be analysed, titles identified and contracts drawn up with the right legal frameworks.”
Nick: “From a legal standpoint, we are seeing a real push to make this happen. I can see this from our work on social housing, green energy and grid infrastructure across all of our 12 offices which gives us a genuinely national perspective. It is important to think creatively about how to build partnerships because there aren’t really any easy wins and there are a lot of challenging problems to navigate. Data and AI will play a huge role in analysing the lie of the land and thinking about fact patterns when building partnerships.”
Is plug-and-play possible?
Imogen: “I think there are more examples of successful plug-and-play options for our industry than we may have realised which, providing stakeholders can work together, could help to deliver a governance shift. The reality of the situation is that the UK has not been good at learning the lessons of the past, from either success or failures, but context is key and there have been wins.”
Andrew: “We can see some of these opportunities in the mortgage finance sector; the ‘plumbing’ exists, the sector just needs the will to use it.”
Key takeaways for property lawyers from the panel:
1. Treat AI as core infrastructure, not an add-on
2. Harvest data now, exploit later: think about NDAs and data holding for this strategy
3. Property is still a ‘trust and handshake’ business – relationships matter
4. Prepare for more complex partnership transactions within the public sector
5. Climate change data is vital to investors; don’t get left behind
This article was submitted by Search Acumen as part of an advertising agreement with Today’s Conveyancer. The views expressed in this article are those of the advertiser and not those of Today’s Conveyancer.
