Lloyds Banking Group, Connells Group & LMS partner to launch fully digital homebuyer service

Lloyds Banking Group, the UK’s biggest mortgage lender, Connells Group, the UK’s leading estate agency and LMS, the UK’s leading provider of conveyancing, are partnering to launch a fully digital homebuying service today, set to reshape the way homes are bought and sold across England and Wales. 

It is widely recognised that the current homebuying process is slow, fragmented and repetitive with an average time to completion of five months. The digital homebuyer service has been developed to eliminate the points of frustration and cut weeks of waiting and uncertainty from the process.

The partnership marks the first phase of a revolutionary national network of agents, lenders, conveyancers and surveyors, that will deliver a live end to end digitally enabled home sale and purchase journey that changes the sequence and timing of key steps in the property transaction. 

What problems is the digital homebuying service designed to solve?

The current homebuying process is well known for creating unnecessary friction through multiple steps, duplicated checks and long wait times - the majority of the 1.2m yearly homebuyers say buying a home is the most stressful experience (see Editor’s Notes). On average it takes over five months to complete a purchase (hoa.org.uk) and around one in four transactions collapse during the process (gov.uk). 

Issues customers commonly raise about the homebuying process include:

• Being asked to provide the same information multiple times to different parties
• Late discovery of issues (searches, title, source of funds) that cause delays or the transaction to fall‑through
• Long periods of uncertainty with poor communication and transparency on progress
• Manual paper‑based or email‑driven processes that increase stress and require rework

The digital homebuying service aims to tackle these issues by moving critical checks and information earlier in the process and sharing them digitally between relevant parties using LMS’s National Property Transaction Network (NPTN), a shared data-exchange platform. 

How will the digital homebuying service improve the experience for customers?

The service is built to eliminate the points of frustration and failure that make moving home stressful and cut weeks of waiting and uncertainty from the process.  Compared to today’s journey, customers should benefit from a slicker, quicker, clearer, simpler process:

• Sellers will become “digital sale ready” earlier, with property, ID and material information captured up front by Moverly.
• Source of funds checks by Armalytix, made earlier in the process – confirming buyers’ ability to buy sooner – the foundations of the transaction. 
• Fewer steps to complete, for example, ID verification required once, removing repetitive requests for them later.
• Searches provided with the property listing - minimising late surprises.
• Conveyancer has access to key information (ID, searches, source of funds), reducing paperwork and speeding up conveyancing.
• Customers get a smoother journey between parties, fewer questions, less chasing and less worry.

What does the digital homebuying service involve?

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 NPTN, property, identity, and financial information can be captured once and then reused by all parties involved in the transaction, the service brings together estate agents, brokers, conveyancers, and lenders earlier in the process. The network is already operational and built on agreed standards aligned to the Property Data Trust Framework (PDTF), enabling adoption at scale.

The service is supported by Moverly, Novus Strategy, Credas, TM Group and Armalytix, the market-leading financial intelligence provider, and aims to replace fragmented, siloed information sharing with a live, secure network that allows trusted data to move easily but securely across the transaction.

Download the press release