The Property Giants Are Joining Forces. It’s Time Independents Did Too

Something significant is happening in the UK housing market while much of the industry is still debating transaction times, Material Information, digitisation and the latest proposed reforms. Some of the largest organisations operating around property appear to have moved on to a much bigger question: how much of the home-moving journey can they connect?

Estate agency, mortgages, conveyancing, surveying, valuations, auctions, property data, asset management and transaction technology were once largely separate businesses. Increasingly, major organisations are bringing several of these activities together through ownership, partnerships, referral arrangements and shared technology.

There is nothing inherently wrong with that. In many respects, it makes obvious commercial sense. The more of the transaction an organisation can connect, the greater its opportunity to retain the customer, introduce additional services, improve the flow of information and create value beyond the original estate agency instruction, mortgage application or conveyancing file.

The significance for independent property professionals is therefore not necessarily what these organisations are doing wrong. It is what they may be doing right. They are connecting the journey.

Connells provides one of the clearest examples of the scale that can now sit behind a property services business. Its wider group operates more than 1,200 estate agency branches across numerous brands while its activities extend into mortgages, conveyancing, surveying, valuations, auctions, asset management, lettings and other residential property services.

In April 2026, that connectivity took another step forward when Connells, Lloyds Banking Group and LMS announced a digital homebuying service designed to connect estate agents, lenders and conveyancers through a shared transaction network, with information and checks moved earlier in the process and reused between relevant parties.

That development becomes particularly interesting when considered alongside Lloyds' wider journey into residential property. Lloyds launched Citra Living in 2021, initially acquiring rental homes from housebuilders. Citra subsequently became Lloyds Living and has developed into a substantial residential landlord providing private rental and shared ownership homes. By June 2026, Lloyds said the business had completed 55 acquisitions and had grown its portfolio to more than 7,750 homes across 55 locations.

Lloyds has therefore moved beyond simply financing other people's property purchases. Through one part of the group it remains a major mortgage lender, while through Lloyds Living it has become a substantial residential property owner.

None of this means Connells is supplying properties to Lloyds Living, and we have found no evidence that it is. Nor have we found evidence that information passing through the new Connells, Lloyds and LMS transaction network is being used to identify homes for acquisition by Lloyds Living. Those distinctions are important.

There is, however, a much wider structural point that independents would be unwise to ignore.

Connells already has businesses serving institutional investors and large corporate landlords. In 2024 its Corporate Residential Property division said it had agreed transactions covering more than 1,200 units for clients including an unnamed major high-street bank, while providing services to institutional investors and corporate landlords seeking to develop and manage residential portfolios.

It does not establish a connection with Lloyds Living. It does demonstrate how parts of the property market that were once regarded as entirely separate are increasingly sitting much closer together.

On one side are estate agency branches, mortgage customers, conveyancers, surveyors and transaction technology. On another are institutional landlords, asset-management operations, property portfolios and residential acquisition businesses. Modern technology makes it increasingly possible to connect participants across that journey.

The important question is not whether that infrastructure is currently being misused. We have no evidence that it is. The strategic question is what happens as more of the home-moving journey becomes concentrated within increasingly connected corporate ecosystems.

Our wider research suggests this is not an isolated development. Upstix, for example, openly markets a "double commission" proposition to estate agents. It says offers through its agent service are typically around 15 per cent below the on-market value or listed price and that, once it buys a property, it will return the subsequent resale instruction to the referring agent.

The economics demonstrate why connected transactions matter. Take a property marketed at £300,000 where the estate agent has agreed a £3,000 completion fee. Using Upstix's published 15 per cent discount as an illustration, the corporate purchase might be around £255,000. The seller accepts £45,000 less in return for speed and certainty, while the agent still earns the original £3,000 fee. If the property is subsequently returned to that agent and another £3,000 fee is earned on resale, the agent has potentially generated £6,000 from two transactions involving the same property.

There can be perfectly legitimate reasons for a homeowner to accept that trade-off. A broken chain, repossession risk, urgent relocation or requirement for a guaranteed completion may make certainty more important than obtaining the highest possible price. The concern is the incentive the structure can create. The agent may potentially earn more from a route in which their client sells at a substantial discount than from completing an ordinary open-market sale once.

That does not make the arrangement abusive, nor is there evidence here that Upstix or a particular agent has behaved improperly. It does, however, demonstrate why transparency and alignment of interests matter. The Government's 2026 home-buying reform work has already identified referral fees, conditional selling, conflicts of interest and estate-agency business practices as areas of concern.

There are similar models elsewhere. Yopa's terms, for example, disclose referral income from conveyancing and mortgage introductions, while its Pay Later proposition connects sellers into a conveyancing panel. (Yopa: Terms and Conditions)

The significance is not that connected services are inherently bad. For consumers, a genuinely joined-up move can remove many of the frustrations that have plagued the process for decades. The significance is who controls that connected journey, whose interests it serves and whether independent professionals remain at its centre or gradually become suppliers at its edges.

Why Independents Need To Take Notice Now

Independent estate agents, solicitors, conveyancers and mortgage brokers are not facing this challenge because they lack expertise. Many provide levels of local knowledge, professional judgement and personal service that large-volume operations struggle to reproduce.

The weakness of the independent sector has never been a lack of expertise. It has been fragmentation.

An independent estate agent can spend years building a local reputation, invest heavily in winning and marketing an instruction and establish the relationship with the homeowner, yet significant parts of the commercial value surrounding that customer can subsequently pass into portals, referral businesses, conveyancing panels and mortgage platforms controlled elsewhere.

A solicitor may provide outstanding professional service while becoming increasingly reliant upon someone else's distribution network for new work. A broker may deliver genuinely independent advice while paying a lead-generation platform for access to the very consumers independent professionals collectively serve every day.

Individually, each may be more than capable of competing with the equivalent professional inside a corporate group. Collectively, however, they are facing something different. They are competing with ecosystems.

The property giants have capital, technology, distribution and scale. They can acquire businesses, build platforms, negotiate national partnerships and connect different stages of the customer journey.

Independents possess something just as powerful, but it remains scattered across thousands of businesses. They have the properties, clients, professional expertise, local relationships, consumer trust and extraordinary collective reach. The independent sector is not small. It is disconnected.

That is precisely why the answer cannot simply be another loose network of independent businesses referring work to one another. Independents already have networking groups, referral clubs, professional associations and supplier panels.

The Maverick Movement is intended to be something fundamentally different.

A Maverick should represent the best of independent property practice: professionals who are prepared to take greater responsibility for getting transactions prepared properly, identifying problems earlier, collaborating openly with the other professionals in the move and putting completion ahead of simply winning an instruction or generating another referral fee.

Being independent is therefore only part of what defines a Maverick.

The other part is the standard of service they are prepared to provide and the infrastructure they have available to deliver it. That is where WiggyWam changes the equation.

For years, reform has approached home moving as though each profession must be fixed separately. Estate agents should gather more information. Conveyancers should work faster. Brokers should communicate better. Technology companies should build another product for another stage of the process. Yet the consumer is not experiencing a collection of separate industries. They are trying to complete one home move.

The corporate groups appear to understand this, which is why they are connecting services around the transaction.

Mavericks can already do the same.

They do not need to wait several years for a corporate transaction network to be completed and then discover what role independent firms are permitted to play within it. Nor do they need to accept that scale can only be achieved through acquisition, consolidation, panel membership or surrendering customers to someone else's ecosystem.

The Moving Hub was built to provide the alternative.

It gives estate agents, solicitors, conveyancers, brokers and other professionals the infrastructure to work around the same home move while remaining genuinely independent businesses. The Sellers Pack enables the property and seller to be prepared earlier. Property Workspaces create a central place for the transaction and its professionals. The Moving Hub connects the participants, information, tasks and progress around the move.

WiggyWam's property portal provides an independent route between property and consumer, while the marketplace creates the opportunity for home movers and professionals to find one another without every relationship having to originate inside a dominant portal, panel or lead-generation business that have substantial additional financial costs.

This is not simply a network. It is an operating environment for the Maverick Movement.

An estate agent does not need to own the solicitor. The solicitor does not need to work for the lender. The broker does not need to belong to the estate agency. Each retains their own client, brand, fees, professional judgement and regulatory responsibilities.

What changes is that they no longer have to operate in isolation. The transaction is connected. The professionals remain independent.

For estate agents, that creates the opportunity to reduce dependence on dominant portals and external commercial ecosystems for access to the property market they themselves help create. For solicitors and conveyancers, it offers direct professional relationships and properly prepared transactions rather than growing dependence on panel distribution and purchased referrals. For brokers, it provides a route to consumers and transactions without continually paying lead-generation businesses to stand between adviser and client.

And for consumers, Mavericks can provide something increasingly important: the convenience and visibility of a connected service without requiring every professional involved in their move to belong to the same corporate group. That is the point that must not be missed.

The corporates are currently investing enormous resources trying to create a joined-up customer journey. Mavericks already have access to the tools needed to provide one. The challenge is no longer invention. It is participation.

This changes the David and Goliath story considerably. David does not need to spend the next five years trying to become Goliath. Nor should he.

Independent estate agents should not have to sell their businesses to gain scale. Solicitors should not have to become anonymous capacity inside enormous panels to secure work. Brokers should not have to continually buy access to consumers through lead-generation platforms. Good independent professionals should not have to wait at the edge of increasingly powerful corporate ecosystems hoping that enough opportunity eventually reaches them.

They already create much of the value those ecosystems depend upon. They have the properties, sellers and buyers. They provide the legal expertise and mortgage advice. They understand their local markets and communities. The opportunity is to stop exporting that value and start connecting it.

That is where the independent sector has the chance not merely to catch up with the corporates, but potentially to get ahead.

Large organisations often have to connect legacy systems, acquired businesses, competing commercial interests and multiple brands. Mavericks do not need to reproduce that structure. They can connect directly around the home move using infrastructure already designed for that purpose, and for them.

It creates a different form of scale: scale without consolidation, collaboration without common ownership and connectivity without surrendering the customer.

Most importantly, the strength grows with participation. One Maverick estate agent using the Moving Hub improves their own transactions. Add a Maverick solicitor and the legal process becomes connected earlier. Add a Maverick broker and another critical part of the journey becomes visible. Add properties to the portal and the Movement gains distribution. Bring consumers into the marketplace and the relationship between the public and independent professionals becomes more direct. Each Maverick strengthens the environment for the next.

Hundreds create meaningful collective reach. Thousands can create something capable of delivering the advantages of corporate scale without recreating the corporate model.

That is the Maverick Movement.

It is not another national chain, franchise or referral club. It does not exist to absorb independent businesses. It exists to identify and connect professionals who want to operate at a higher standard and give them the infrastructure to compete collectively while remaining fiercely independent.

There is also a question of timing. The corporate transformation of the property market is already underway. Lloyds already owns thousands of homes. Connells already operates across multiple stages of the property journey. Connells, Lloyds and LMS are already developing connected transaction infrastructure. Other groups already combine estate agency, mortgage distribution, conveyancing, surveying, data and asset-management capabilities.

The independent sector therefore has a choice while its collective strength remains enormous. It can continue as thousands of separate businesses, paying other organisations for distribution, leads, referrals and access to consumers while larger businesses connect more of the home-moving journey around them.

Or the best independents can become Mavericks and connect themselves.

This is not corporate estate agent against independent estate agent, or national conveyancer against local solicitor. It is increasingly corporate scale against collective scale.

The corporates have chosen their strategy. They are joining forces.

The Maverick Movement gives independent professionals the means to do the same without selling, consolidating or surrendering what makes them independent.

They do not have to wait for the future to be built for them, and they certainly do not have to survive on whatever opportunities eventually fall from somebody else's table.

The technology is here. The infrastructure is here. The independent expertise is already here.

What we need now are the Mavericks. The property giants are joining forces. It is time the best independents did too.