The Government's Homebuying Shake-Up Has Arrived. And ProConvey Already Delivers It

On 18 June 2026, the government unveiled the biggest reform of the home buying and selling process in decades — upfront sales packs, earlier binding agreements, digital logbooks, reusable identity and electronic signatures, all underpinned by a major shift to digital. It is, almost line for line, the system ProConvey has already built. While the rest of the market begins preparing for change, agents and conveyancers on ProConvey are already operating the future the government just described.

For years the industry has talked about modernising property transactions. This week, the government set a deadline. The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government's reform package promises to cut buying times by around four weeks, save first-time buyers an average of £650, and halve the number of sales that collapse, fixing a system where the average purchase takes around 120 days, one in three sales falls through, and failed transactions cost the economy up to £1.5 billion every year.

The reforms are ambitious. But for ProConvey users, very little of what was announced is new. The platform was built around upfront information, trusted digital data and connected workflows long before they became government policy. Here is exactly how each headline reform maps to what ProConvey already does today.

Reform 1: Upfront "sales packs" at the point of listing

The centrepiece of the announcement is a requirement for sellers and agents to provide key information upfront, a home's condition, leasehold costs and chain status, in a sales pack available the moment a property is listed. The goal is simple: let buyers make informed decisions and let conveyancers start work sooner, rather than waiting weeks after an offer is accepted to gather basic documentation.

This is precisely what ProConvey's Fast Track Sale (FTS) was designed to deliver. Sellers complete their full legal pack before a buyer is found, becoming "sale ready" in as little as two hours from a computer, tablet or phone. The pack already includes everything the government's sales packs are intended to contain:

• Material Information and EPC data — the disclosure layer the reforms make mandatory
• The Law Society TA6 (6th edition) and TA7 (5th edition) — covering property and leasehold information, including the leasehold costs the government wants surfaced early. These editions become mandatory for CQS members from 30 March 2026
• Land Registry title documents and official copies
• Complete client onboarding for sellers, attorneys, deputies, executors, trustees and company representatives
• Upfront enquiries that answer the questions a buyer's conveyancer would otherwise raise weeks later — cutting back-and-forth by around 80%
• Contract-ready packs, organised into folders with correct document naming, ready to send the instant a property goes under offer

Where the government is asking the market to build sales packs, ProConvey users are already sending them.

Reform 2: A major shift to digital — logbooks and securely shared data

At the heart of the reforms is a move away from outdated paper-based systems toward digital property logbooks and sales packs that can be shared securely between professionals and accessed by buyers and sellers in real time. The government wants to cut out the duplication and back-and-forth that cause so many delays.

ProConvey is among the first platforms to fully integrate with the National Property Transaction Network (NPTN) by LMS, the secure ecosystem connecting estate agents, law firms, lenders and brokers, built on Open Property Data Association standards and the Property Data Trust Framework. Through NPTN, a seller enters their information once and it flows to every stakeholder, authenticated and standardised. This is the "trusted information shared securely" model the announcement describes, already live and processing real transactions.

The government also pointed admiringly to the Netherlands, where a live transaction-tracking system helps achieve completion in around 20 days on average. ProConvey's branded dashboards already give agents, conveyancers and clients real-time visibility of exactly where each case stands, the same "track and progress your move" experience the reforms are reaching for.

Reform 3: Digital identity and electronic signatures

The government has committed to backing digital identity checks and electronic signatures to strip out duplication and reduce fraud, tackling a process that currently involves an average of 5.4 separate ID checks per transaction.

ProConvey delivers both today:

• Integrated digital ID and AML checks from leading providers including Yoti, Thirdfort, Armalytix and Title Guardian, with reusable identity verification on the way via NPTN, so a check completed once can be trusted by all parties though Thirdfort secure share
• HMLR legally binding eSignatures, alongside QES, AES and Conveyancer Certified eSignatures (CCES), eWitnessing and full eIDAS-compliant signing, with 85% of recipients signing within two hours, replacing posted documents entirely

Reform 4: AI-assisted conveyancing and automation

The reforms explicitly back AI-assisted conveyancing to accelerate transactions from start to finish. ProConvey's automation already removes the slowest, most repetitive parts of the job. Clients are guided through onboarding digitally regardless of their role in the transaction, with enquiries raised automatically based on their answers. Contract and transfer documents are drafted fully in one click. Onboarding letters automatically include dynamic sections depending on the case and property type. From the moment an agent instructs a case through to completion, automation is built in at every stage. For firms, that translates to up to a 70% reduction in cost per case and up to a 50% reduction in time from instruction to exchange. ProConvey is working on AI assisted support being announced in the next few months to further reduce admin and accelerate the process for agents and conveyancers.

Reform 5: Earlier binding agreements

The headline most likely to make buyers and sellers sit up is earlier binding agreements, binding conditional contracts that commit both parties sooner, with penalties for walking away without good reason. The government has been clear this will only come into force after sales packs are embedded, so that no one is bound to a transaction before they have access to key property information.

That sequencing matters, because the precondition for binding contracts is exactly what ProConvey already provides: complete, trusted, upfront information available before commitment. As the Council for Licensed Conveyancers put it, digitalised upfront information combined with reservation agreements lets buyers and sellers agree a completion date far earlier than today, what the CLC calls "speed to confidence." Firms running on ProConvey will be ready for binding agreements the moment the legislation lands, because the upfront groundwork is already available.

Reform 6: Raising standards — a new Code of Practice

Alongside the digital reforms comes a new Code of Practice for estate agents and proposals for mandatory qualifications, designed to rebuild trust and equip agents to support efficient transactions. ProConvey helps agents demonstrate higher standards from day one: compliance declarations, full audit logs, SOC 2 Type II security, and a professional, branded client journey on the agent's own domain. An agent offering a legally prepared, sale-ready listing is already operating to the standard the Code is intended to raise the market toward.

What this means for estate agents

For agents, the reforms turn upfront information from a differentiator into a baseline expectation. The agents who move first will win. ProConvey's Fast Track Sale lets you offer sale-ready listings now, with:

• Panel management and instant, accurate conveyancing quotes using firm-specific pricing
• Retained referral revenue with full control over your conveyancing panel
• Higher-quality listings that attract serious buyers and stall far less often
• Free setup, no subscriptions, and you can be live in around 15 minutes

The NPTN pilot that informed these reforms delivered a 21% rise in instruction rates, a 43% reduction in fall-throughs and 35% faster exchanges*. Those are the outcomes the government is now legislating toward and they are available to ProConvey agents today.

What this means for conveyancers

The reforms will compress the timeline conveyancers work to, and reward firms that can act on complete information immediately. ProConvey transforms the most time-consuming phase of any transaction, the opening weeks of onboarding, form-chasing and compliance, into a single automated step. Instead of spending two to three weeks gathering information after instruction, you receive an exchange-ready pack and proceed straight to legal work. With conveyancer numbers down 15% since 2021 while demand climbs, that efficiency is no longer optional; it is how firms protect capacity and lender-panel turnaround times.

The roadmap is set. The infrastructure already exists.

The government's plan rolls out in phases: a Code of Practice and improved listing guidance later this year, consultation on agent qualifications and expanded digital tools from 2027, and comprehensive legislation requiring sales packs, binding contracts and digital systems by the end of this Parliament. The phasing gives the sector time to adapt.

But the firms that thrive will not be the ones scrambling to comply at each deadline. They will be the ones already operating this way, winning instructions, reducing fall-throughs and completing faster while competitors are still planning. The government has just described the destination. ProConvey is already there.

The reforms confirm what we have believed from the start: upfront information, trusted digital data and connected workflows are the future of property transactions. That future is now policy. With ProConvey, it is also already your everyday workflow.

Ready to meet the reforms before they're mandatory?

• Estate agents: visit www.proconvey.co.uk/estate-agents to set up your panel and start offering Fast Track Sale to sellers
• Conveyancers: visit www.proconvey.co.uk to see how ProConvey streamlines your workflow and connects you to agents

Free setup. No subscriptions. 15-minute onboarding.

* Performance figures reference results from the LMS-led NPTN pilot delivered in 2024 with Connells Group, Peter Alan, TM Group, Moverly and a panel of law firms. As an NPTN partner, ProConvey applies these principles to support improved outcomes across the home buying and selling process. Government reform figures are drawn from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government press release of 18 June 2026.