Event round-up- Smart Data in Property: Laying the Foundations for a Digitised Industry
On May 26th, techUK was delighted to host a panel discussion, Smart Data in Property: Laying the Foundations for a Digitised Industry.
Property transactions are one of the most data-intensive and high-risk processes in the economy. However, today's system relies heavily on manual checks, paper documentation, and in-person verification, resulting in delays, higher costs, and poor user experience.
Smart Data and digital ID have the potential to transform this landscape by enabling secure, reusable identity verification, streamlining Know Your Customer (KYC) and anti-money laundering (AML) processes, and supporting trusted data sharing. With Government analysis estimating billions in potential economic value, improving this process is critical not just for consumers, but for the wider UK economy.
But how are Smart Data and digital ID really digitising the market, why is the property sector only now emerging as the place to unlock that potential? And crucially, what needs to happen to turn that promise into reality?
Please see below for the full recording of our discussion here. We are grateful for our fantastic panellists for taking the time to join us.
Daniella Bennett Remington- Policy Manager for Data & AI, techUK (Chair)
John Fitzpatrick - Head of Smart Data, Department for Business & Trade
Maria Harris - Founder & Chair, Open Property Data Association
Ed Molyneux - Co-Founder & CTO, Moverly
Reema Vadoliya - Head of Data, Signable
Please find a written summary below.
Core thesis: Property is a priority sector for the UK's Smart Data programme. Home buying is the first scheme target because it sits at the intersection of finance, identity, energy, and property data, making it the ideal proving ground for interoperability.
Key themes from the discussion
What Smart Data is and the scale of the opportunity
Smart Data means the secure, consented sharing of customer and business data with authorised third parties via API, going further than GDPR's right of access, with Open Banking as the model, now counting 300+ firms and 17 million daily users. Powers to build this out come from the Data Use and Access Act. £36m has been committed over four years, with ambition for 20+ interoperable schemes across 9 sectors by 2035.
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The problem today
Transactions average 120 days post-offer, 60% longer than in 2007. One in three fall through, wasted costs run to £400m a year, and consumers face 10+ hours of paperwork. The pain is felt across the entire chain, from agents and valuers to conveyancers and lenders.
Why now
has now been published, the Property Data Trust Framework is live in production, and LLMs can now extract structured data from legacy scanned documents. Early evidence from a digital home-buying journey involving Connells, Lloyds and LMS is already showing reduced exchange times and fewer fall-throughs.
Digital ID and property
Buyers currently re-verify their identity four or more times in a single transaction. Linking identity to property ownership and source-of-funds checks would strengthen fraud and AML controls while enabling reusable, consented verification.
Government coordination and what's coming
The Department for Business and Trade and Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) meet weekly, with HM Land Registry (HMLR) digitisation, FCA PRISM sprints, the Smart Data Council and the Digital Property Market Steering Group all similarly working towards making Open Property a success. A call for evidence on a property Ssmart Data scheme is imminent, with a MHCLG consultation response expected before the end of spring.
The call to action
We do not need to wait for secondary legislation. Sandboxes are already live with HMLR, Ordnance Survey, Mining Remediation and local authorities, and industry should plug in now.
The 2035 vision
Panellists painted an ambitious picture, from a world-leading interoperable Smart Data economy to AI agents negotiating transactions on consumers' behalf and lenders pricing risk in real time, with some suggesting this could arrive as soon as 2030. The first end-to-end Smart Data home-buying transaction was cited as a near-term milestone, with the broader ambition of taking home buying off the "worst life experiences" list by 2035. Accessibility was flagged as essential throughout, ensuring the transition doesn't leave people behind.
Thank you to those who took the time to join our discussion. techUK will continue to advocate for further use cases and adoption of Smart Data and Digital Identity solutions across society and the economy. Shape techUK’s future work, by joining :
Smart Data Steering Group
Digital Identity Working group
