The biggest high street lender today announced a ‘revolutionary’ conveyancing partnership to create what it said will be the first fully digital homebuying service. It aims to speed up the process, cut the number of chains collapsing and reduce customer stress.
Lloyds Banking Group’s homes director Andrew Asaam said the homebuying and selling process was too stressful, slow and laborious. The new service would ‘cut the stress, increase the speed, reduce the workload for customers and limit the number of transactions that fall through’.
Lloyds said it has teamed up with estate agency Connells Group and conveyancing provider LMS to remove ‘unnecessary friction’ in homebuying, such as duplicate requests for information and late discovery of issues, by moving certain checks and information earlier in the process and sharing them digitally between parties on LMS’s National Property Transaction Network.
Lloyds said sellers would become ‘digital sale ready’ with property, ID and material information captured earlier by Moverly and Armalytix would conduct source of funds checks earlier. Searches would be provided with the property listing to minimise ‘late surprises’.
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Lloyds’ announcement contained a statement from housing secretary Steve Reed, who said he was pleased to see this latest partnership.
Today’s announcement is the latest in a long line of announcements on measures to speed up the homebuying and selling process, which has been on the government’s agenda for years.
Since Keir Starmer’s administration announced a homebuying ‘shakeup’ last October, the conveyancing sector has seen announcements on government-backed open property coalition to accelerate homebuying digitisation and Nationwide becoming the first lender to accept e-signatures.
HM Land Registry shelved its attempt to create a digital conveyancing system in 2007. An attempt led by the Law Society was wound up in 2015.
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