PEXA on the move: Five ways to make home buying and selling work better

Over the past few weeks, PEXA has joined conversations with policymakers, lenders and conveyancers about how to make moving home faster and more certain. We’ve summarised all this activity within five takeaways, which we’ve outlined below. 

The discussions have ranged from first-time buyers and smart data to mortgage switching and the work that continues after completion. The thread running throughout is that while different organisations see different parts of a transaction, home movers experience it as one journey.

 

1. The cost of a first home includes the process of buying it

The Government has recently announced the creation of Your First Home, a new support scheme for first time buyers, to help them get on the housing ladder. 

At the Labour Party Conference, Angela Hesketh, PEXA’s Head of Government and Public Affairs, joined a Labour Housing Group panel on the next generation of homeownership, held in partnership with PEXA. The discussion covered affordability, housing supply and the barriers facing first-time buyers. 

Angela focused on a cost that can be overlooked: buying the home itself, which are not solely financial. The proposed scheme aims to lower the deposit barrier, but buyers also face the time, expense and uncertainty of getting to completion. First-time buyers may have less room to absorb the financial impact when a transaction is delayed or falls through.  

This resonates with recent market research. A survey from LPL found that a quarter of respondents who had experienced delays said it had affected their mental health. Respondents said conveyancing, legal work, administration and paperwork had the biggest impact, because they had no control over the process.  

Additionally, recent research from Tembo found that 51% of first-time buyers ranked the legal and administrative process among their three biggest concerns, compared with 43% for saving a deposit. One in three buyers had low confidence in navigating the process, while 17% said conveyancing was their biggest challenge.  

The message is clear – support with a deposit can help someone begin their journey. Clearer information, fewer repeated requests and a more predictable route to completion can help them finish it.

 

2. Reform needs to reach completion

Completion remains one of the least modernised parts of the homebuying process, and the government estimates that around one in three property transactions falls through, often late in the process.

At a Council for Licensed Conveyancers roundtable in September, PEXA joined stakeholders discussing the pressures conveyancers face today alongside the governments home buying and selling reform roadmap. In October, ata UK Finance webinar sponsored by PEXA, we spoke alongside Alison Verlander, UK Finance’s Director of Mortgages, about what reform could mean for lenders, including the role of trusted data, digital identity and payments innovation.

At the Woodhurst Leaders’ Summit in October, which PEXA also sponsored, we moderated a discussion with leaders from NatWest, Coventry Building Society and Cumberland Building Society. In an audience poll, 40% of the 43 respondents chose mortgage offer to completion as the part of the journey most in need of transformation. Panellists observed that issuing offers faster can expose delays elsewhere, with an offer potentially expiring before the transaction is ready. Progress at the start of the mortgage journey needs to carry through the legal work, movement of funds and completion.

The roadmap takes a whole-system approach, but digital completion isn’t explicit. We believe reform also needs to cover the secure movement of funds, completion and title registration. We explored this final stage further in a recent blog on reforming completion.

If completion and registration remain fragmented, manually coordinated and difficult to track, uncertainty simply moves into the final stages. Reform must reach the last mile, modernising completion and title registration as part of the same clear, connected process. The opportunity is to connect the beginning and the end of the transaction, so the entire process works effectively from start to finish.

 

3. Smart data needs to work in a transaction

Home movers are often asked for information that someone else involved in the transaction has already collected. Sharing trusted information could reduce that repetition, but its value depends on whether other professionals involved in the process can use it when they need it.

The government’s Smart Data call for evidence in July 2026 included property and asked where data sharing could be useful, as well as what rules would be needed to make it work. For lenders and conveyancers, the value will depend on whether reliable information can move with a live case. The size of the prize is significant, as the Smart Data Strategy (published in March 2026) found homebuying to be the most valuable use case, potentially worth more than £14bn to the economy.

At Open Banking Expo in October, PEXA represented the Open Property Data Association in a Smart Data Stage discussion about how Smart Data can grow beyond banking. The discussion highlighted the property sector’s potential to benefit from trusted, structured and reusable data. There was real enthusiasm for taking Smart Data into new sectors and learning from each other, while recognising that progress depends on collaboration, interoperability and turning ambition into practical delivery.

There’s a practical example in the government’s home buying and selling reform roadmap: 83% of respondents to its question on anti-money laundering checks agreed they should be streamlined. Respondents suggested reusing verified checks across the professionals involved to reduce duplication. Sharing those checks would need clear rules on permission, access and accuracy.

That is the test for smart data in property: can the next person working on a transaction use information already gathered, without asking the buyer or seller to start again?

 

4. What avoidable requisitions could be costing your firm

A buyer may have the keys, but a conveyancer’s work can continue after completion. If HM Land Registry raises a requisition, someone has to return to the file, find the information needed and respond. Across a firm’s caseload, those extra rounds of work take time from other matters and can delay registration.

At PEXA’s webinar in October, representatives from HM Land Registry, the Council for Licensed Conveyancers, PC Consultancy and Dutton Gregory LLP discussed how firms can reduce repeat work. The practical takeaways included prioritising and resourcing post-completion work, training teams, and making sure handovers and ownership are clear. This work also carries professional responsibility: the Council for Licensed Conveyancers’ latest Risk Agenda identifies application accuracy as a core responsibility.

HM Land Registry’s latest figures, discussed at the webinar, show a 47.7% reduction in avoidable requisition points since 2022, with 439,000 still recorded in 2025. A single requisition can contain several points, such as a name discrepancy and a missing document. The sector-wide improvement is encouraging, but the useful question for each firm is where its own rework arises. Seeing those patterns alongside the time they may consume gives teams a clearer basis for choosing which checks to bring forward and seeing whether they make a difference.

Our free personalised avoidable requisitions report uses published HM Land Registry data to estimate the time and potential cost of avoidable work for your firm and compares your rate with similar firms and the wider market.

 

5. Make mortgage changes easier for customers to understand

When customers review their mortgage deal, they may stay with their current lender and transfer to a new product, or remortgage with another lender. The routes involve different steps, so customers need a clear picture of the one that applies to them. 

This is a significant part of the mortgage market. UK Finance forecasts £77 billion of external remortgaging and £261 billion of internal product transfers in 2026. These are forecasts of activity by value, rather than numbers of customers, but they show how many lending decisions sit behind the need for a clearer experience. 

At the Labour Party Conference, we compared switching a mortgage deal with switching a bank account: it’s easier to navigate a change when people can see the steps and expected timings. Some lenders are already improving the product transfer process. Santander, for example, has reported that more than 98% of its product transfer acceptances are now fulfilled automatically, reducing processing time from days to minutes. It has also added mortgage details to its intermediary tool to support client conversations. 

As these processes change, clear communication remains essential. Customers should know which route they’re taking, what’s happened, what’s still outstanding and what happens next. If timings change, a clear update helps them understand where they stand.

 

What this means in practice

Across our conversations with professionals across the property industry, we’ve heard a real passion for making home buying and selling work better. The five themes in this article reflect a shared intent, alongside the different perspectives and practical challenges shaping the discussion. For lenders, the opportunity is to carry the clarity of the mortgage decision through to completion. Better visibility of a case’s progress can help teams see what is still outstanding, identify potential delays earlier and give customers more useful updates. That is important for purchases and remortgages, while product transfers need communications that reflect their different, simpler process. Across each route, customers should understand what happens next and who is responsible. 

For conveyancers, the focus is on having reliable information and completing the right checks at the right time. Reusing verified information where appropriate could reduce repeated requests to clients, while spotting discrepancies before completion or lodgement could prevent avoidable work later. Better visibility across lenders and conveyancers can also make it easier to coordinate the movement of funds, completion and registration, particularly when a case does not follow the expected timetable. 

It’s an exciting time for the property industry, with more change on the horizon than we’ve ever seen before. As we continue these conversations, we’ll keep sharing the common themes, ideas and practical steps that can help join up the home-moving process.