The Intermediary – November 2025 - Flipbook - Page 10
T E C H N O L O GY
In focus
it comes to property valuations and have no
Digital homebuying
alternatives
immediate plans to do so.”
Stephen Cowdell, head of intermediary sales
at 360 Lifecycle, says he is “concerned” about the
use of Al in the home loan market.
Scotland
Upfront material information for buyers already exists, along
with more binding contracts between buyers and sellers,
resulting in fewer fall-throughs.
He explains: “AI can produce decisions
weighted towards various concepts, whether that
be region, gender, race, age, or whatever.
“That means because of a particular bias, these
systems can wrongly decline customer loans, or
recommend higher rates.”
Norway
Transactions complete in four weeks or less, with
digitisation driving estimated savings of up to £1bn
over 10 years.
Cowdell extends his concerns about the use
of AI on all sides of the transaction, adding:
“AI may also produce an unfair playing field
for consumers at a time when the Financial
Australia
Homes can be bought through an end-to-end digital process
operated by the online property completion platform
provider PEXA.
Conduct Authority [FCA] is proposing to allow
homeowners to sign more remortgage deals
without advice.
“They may have access to tools like ChatGPT,
but that does not compare to the millions of data
points that lenders or advisers have.
Finland
Digital real estate system Dias enables customers to
complete transactions digitally, including signing all
documents and contracts online. Transactions are completed
in around two weeks.
“That could lead to consumers unwittingly
making bad decisions.”
Indeed, Nikhil Rathi, chief executive at the FCA
admitted there would be “trade-offs” between
the looser lending standards it is allowing, such
as higher loan-to-value (LTV) loans, and the
Estonia
Homebuying and selling is highly digitalised, and the
Estonian Land Registry is wholly online. The system is
supported by key digital infrastructure, including digital
signatures and interoperable services.
Source: ‘Home Buying and Selling Reform’ consultation,
October 2025
current historically low figure of around 1,000
possessions a quarter, when he appeared before
the Treasury Committee in March.
Conveying the challenge
When it comes to conveyancing, Underwood
says this part of the industry “is a tech-led
business,” but admits that at this stage of a home
move, “there are operational frictions, which the
industry has never been able to grapple with.”
buyers of all types moving up and through the
property market – is driving the uptake of these
new systems, they do necessitate a certain level
of caution.
Lorenzo Tejada-Orrell, chief innovation officer
at CLSQ, says: “The danger is that inaccurate data,
especially data that has very little interpretation,
can flood through the system, causing potential
delays during the property transaction.”
Stevens checks his AVM valuations against
similar physical surveys each month.
He says: “We need to understand where the
model is accurate and where it is not.”
While progress is being made in the realm
of automating valuations, the use of artificial
intelligence (AI) in property valuation is another
step into the future, and one that not many
people feel prepared for.
Stevens says: “We are looking at it. But we are
not looking at anything live at the moment when
8
The Intermediary | November 2025
Many across the mortgage business agree
that weeks could be saved at this stage of the
process. They cite customers having to provide
the same identity and proof of funds documents
three or four times to estate agents, lenders and
legal teams.
James Tucker, chief executive at Twenty7tec,
argues that the conveyancing stage is a key
“bottleneck,” which he describes as “painful,
expensive and slow.”
Tucker says that if the homebuying process
is to move from around 120 days to a desired
28, industry losers will be those that are slow to
move to digital working.
“We cannot have a market running so
inefficiently that players in it are able to monetise
that slow movement,” adds Tucker.
Michael Grant, head of sales at TAB, agrees
that the process “needs less red tape,” but
Countrywide director of technical services
Martyn Stones warns: “There is not enough data
p
