After years of half-measures and failed initiatives, the government has again turned its gaze to one of Britain’s most frustrating institutions: the home buying process. It’s a system that is broadly recognised as broken – and one that successive governments have repeatedly promised, and failed, to fix.
The average home move now takes a staggering 205 days from listing to completion. One in three transactions collapses before completion, and £1.5 billion is lost each year through failed sales. These figures represent families stuck in limbo, renters unable to move, and buyers forced to reapply for mortgages as chains collapse around them.
This time, though, there are hopes across industry that the government appears serious. A consultation on reforms to the system has been launched, and with cross-party consensus that the housing market’s inefficiency acts as a brake on growth, it marks the most significant modernisation attempt in decades. Whether it succeeds may depend less on political will and more on whether the government is ready to embrace the kind of digital innovation that transformed markets abroad.
A long road to reform
For years, the conveyancing process has been defined by paperwork, disconnected systems and inconsistent protocols. Each party – agents, lenders, conveyancers, surveyors, local authorities, and HM Land Registry – operates in its own digital silo, with limited interoperability. The result is predictable delays, duplication, and error embedded in almost every transaction, leaving Britain’s homes stuck as trapped liquidity in the housing market.
The consultation sets out an ambitious vision: a digitally enabled home buying and selling system with consistent use of upfront information, stronger regulation for estate agents, and better consumer protection. It also hints at exploring binding offers and AI-assisted conveyancing, though both remain long-term ambitions rather than immediate reforms.
Ministers argue that reform will “increase transparency, reduce fall-throughs, and improve trust”. It is language that feels familiar. In 2010, the last major reform attempt – the ill-fated Home Information Packs (HIPs) – collapsed under political pressure and technical confusion. Many in the industry fear history could repeat itself.
This time, there’s one crucial difference: the technology now exists to make reforms work.
Proven solutions from abroad?
Australia’s experience offers a compelling glimpse of what the UK could achieve. Over the past decade, the introduction of electronic conveyancing and a digital completion platform has transformed the buying process there.
PEXA is a digital property exchange platform that modernises the process of buying and selling property by allowing solicitors, conveyancers, and lenders to complete property transactions electronically, replacing traditional paper-based systems. Originating in Australia, its UK bespoke platform connects lenders and conveyancers in a secure shared digital environment, improving collaboration, automating financial settlement, and expediting title lodgement.
Through PEXA as the core infrastructure, all parties in a transaction – conveyancers, lenders, and land registries – can transfer funds securely, and validate and register title in real time.
The results are stark. The average settlement in Australia takes five weeks. [CD1] [LM2] [CD3] Settlement fraud has been virtually eliminated, requisitions (manual errors delaying registration) have fallen significantly, and there is consumer confidence in the process.
It is, in short, a working model of what a digital property market can deliver.
In the UK, PEXA has now built a platform specifically for the challenges of the UK market. NatWest is currently implementing PEXA with a view to transacting remortgage transactions by the end of the first half of 2026 and facilitating sale and purchase transactions down the line. The platform is the seventh regulated payment scheme in the Bank of England, and the first built specifically for property transactions. There is growing acknowledgement and excitement that secure, instantaneous completions are now possible on our shores too.
Whether government reforms can align with this kind of digital infrastructure remains uncertain. The consultation makes limited mention of payment and completion reform – a notable omission given that the key moment in a property transaction, when the money moves and title is transferred, remains the moment of greatest risk. Though measures like binding contracts might help prevent fall throughs, the government must ensure it focuses on fixing the act of buying and selling a home, the core transaction, not just the supporting processes.
The fraud problem
It’s a vulnerability that costs consumers and law firms dearly. Fraud is rising across the sector: 65% of law firms have faced cyber incidents and 30% of buyers have experienced property fraud, driven by payment diversion scams, bogus law practices and identity theft.
The structural problem is clear: money and title still move on separate tracks. Funds are manually transferred through generic banking rails, while title changes are lodged with HM Land Registry at some point after completion. In this gap – sometimes hours, sometimes days – the system is at its weakest.
A move towards centralised, regulated digital completion platforms, integrated directly with the banking system, would close that gap. It is a reform that goes beyond convenience; it’s a question of national financial security.
For now, though, fraud prevention appears only lightly referenced in the consultation – folded into broader ambitions around transparency and consumer protection. Many in the industry believe that’s a missed opportunity.
The politics of progress
With successive governments preoccupied with housing supply, conveyancing reform rarely tops the agenda. Yet 42% of buyers report mental health impacts from the stress of moving, and the workforce is under strain too: the number of lawyers practicing in conveyancing in England and Wales has fallen by 15% (from just over 13,000 in Sept 2021 to 11,140 in Jan 2025), reflecting burnout in a system burdened by outdated processes, extra administration, stress and delays.
The challenge, as ever, is sequencing. The financial transaction should sit at the centre of these reforms, not as an afterthought.
For the first time in years, there is genuine momentum. With digital infrastructure now being put in place, a coalition of reformers spanning government, fintech and conveyancing could finally deliver the modernisation that buyers and sellers have long been promised.
For a housing system long stuck in the 20th century, this consultation is a moment of truth.
