For years, conveyancers have been told that technology is coming to change their profession. That conversation is now becoming rather more urgent, because the question is no longer whether the home-moving transaction will change. It is who will shape what replaces it.
In April, Connells Group, Lloyds Banking Group and LMS launched a digital homebuying service bringing estate agency, lending and conveyancing into a connected journey. The first phase operates through Connells branches, LMS-panel conveyancers and Lloyds Banking Group as lender, using LMS's National Property Transaction Network, NPTN, to move information between participants. Those behind it describe this as the beginning of a wider national network.
In July, LMS, Landmark, InfoTrack and Decision First announced another collaboration designed to make information move more easily between lenders and conveyancers. Collectively, they say their platforms already support more than 90 per cent of UK lenders and residential conveyancing firms.
These are significant developments, and much of what they are trying to achieve is exactly what the home-moving process needs.
NPTN itself says it is an open, agnostic network and that organisations can participate without changing who they work with or abandoning their existing systems. The concern, therefore, is not whether independent conveyancers are allowed to participate. The more important question is what happens when independent businesses become increasingly reliant on transaction infrastructure that is owned or influenced by organisations with substantial commercial interests elsewhere in the same market.
That distinction matters.
Companies House records show that Connells Limited has a significant ownership interest in the company sitting above LMS, alongside Project Ophelia Bidco. Connells itself operates across estate agency, mortgages, conveyancing, surveying, panel management and other property services. Businesses connected through the other side of that ownership structure also operate extensively across conveyancing and panel management.
None of that suggests anything improper is happening, nor is there evidence that independent firms using NPTN are being treated differently.
But it raises a perfectly reasonable commercial question for an independent conveyancer:
Why would you allow your business to become increasingly dependent on infrastructure in which organisations competing within your own market have significant ownership interests?
Competing on price is becoming a dangerous strategy
Conveyancing has spent years being pushed towards commoditisation. Consumers are encouraged to compare headline fees, agents and intermediaries may recommend panel firms, and high-volume providers have built business models around processing large numbers of transactions.
That is difficult enough when conveyancers are simply competing against one another. It becomes considerably more significant when large property groups can participate at several points in the same customer journey.
Connells, for example, operates across estate agency, mortgage distribution, conveyancing, conveyancing panel management, surveying and valuations amongst its wider activities.
An independent conveyancer may therefore no longer simply be competing against another law firm for an instruction. They can be competing for visibility within a much larger customer journey in which other organisations are capable of monetising several stages of the same move. An independent firm cannot beat that model simply by becoming cheaper.
Trying to do so risks creating the worst possible combination: lower margins, larger caseloads, exhausted staff and less time for the professional judgement that actually distinguishes a good conveyancer from a processing operation.
The independent conveyancer's future cannot be built around being the cheapest person in somebody else's customer journey. It has to be built around becoming more valuable and retaining control of the professional relationship.
Speed does not have to mean cutting corners
This is where the debate about upfront information needs to change. There is an understandable concern among conveyancers that "upfront information" could become another demand placed upon them, another collection of documents of uncertain quality, or another expectation that legal advice should somehow be provided before instruction without being paid for. That would not be reform.
The real opportunity is to change what arrives on the conveyancer's desk in the first place. At present, a property can be marketed and an offer accepted before some of the most basic preparation has happened. The solicitor is then instructed into an already urgent transaction and expected to discover missing information, resolve problems and answer increasingly impatient requests for updates. A faster transaction should not require the lawyer to work faster under greater pressure. It should require fewer avoidable problems to reach the lawyer late.
Better preparation changes the conveyancer's starting point
This is precisely what we are building through WiggyWam's Sellers Pack and Moving Hub. The seller begins preparing before a buyer is waiting. Property information, Material Information, supporting documents and searches are brought together early rather than being scattered across the transaction later. But we have deliberately avoided simply replacing paper problems with digital ones.
Our Smart Forms are designed to help sellers provide information more intelligently. When they do not know the answer to an important question, they do not have to guess simply to get through the form. They can select Not sure, creating a visible point for the estate agent or solicitor to review. That seemingly small feature matters.
Instead of uncertainty being hidden inside a completed form and discovered weeks later, the professional can immediately see where the seller needs assistance.
The forms can provide explanations and guidance while information is being completed, including around questions consumers may find complex. But that guidance is not presented as a replacement for legal advice.
The technology helps the consumer provide better information. The professional decides what that information means. That is the distinction we should be protecting.
A digital search report is not the same as local expertise
The same principle applies to property searches. Digitisation can make searches easier to order and quicker to distribute, but simply dropping another PDF into a solicitor's case-management system is not necessarily progress.
Our Straight Fact Packs are supported by independent regulated search professionals with genuine local knowledge. They understand the authorities, the records and the peculiarities that can sit behind the data.
The search information gives the conveyancer an informed starting point. The independent search professional provides another layer of expertise. The solicitor then applies their legal judgement and raises whatever additional enquiries the property requires. That is very different from trying to automate expertise and people out of the transaction. It is using technology to put better information in front of experts sooner.
The real issue is dependency, not access
This may ultimately be one of the biggest issues facing independent conveyancers. An open network can still create commercial dependency.
If a transaction network becomes widely adopted by lenders, agents, brokers, conveyancers and technology providers, participation naturally becomes increasingly valuable. Eventually, it may become commercially important simply because that is where more of the transaction happens.
At that point, the important questions are no longer simply: Can an independent conveyancer join? Can they continue using their existing systems? The questions become: Who controls the infrastructure? Who determines future access and pricing? Who controls how transaction data can be used? Who decides how the network develops?
And what protects independent businesses from connected organisations ever gaining commercial advantage from the infrastructure on which those independents rely?
There is no suggestion here that preferential treatment is currently happening. The question is whether the structure protects against it if this kind of infrastructure becomes increasingly important to the market. That does not mean every independent law firm should build its own technology platform. That would simply create another generation of fragmentation.
But neither should an independent practice have to become commercially dependent on infrastructure controlled partly by organisations operating within the same markets simply to provide clients with a modern home-moving experience. Independents need infrastructure without having to surrender their commercial leverage to obtain it.
The technology should support the professional
The WiggyWam Moving Hub is being built around that principle. The conveyancer can continue using their own legal systems, retain their client relationship and professional independence while participating in the same transaction environment as the seller, buyer, agent and broker.
Appropriate progress can be visible without exposing confidential legal advice. Tasks and milestones can reduce unnecessary chasing. Seller information prepared earlier can move into the transaction rather than being repeatedly collected. Professionals can work together without the platform attempting to determine who they should work with. The technology supports the professional. It does not seek to control where their work comes from or monetise every relationship around the transaction.
Independence now needs infrastructure
The corporate market is moving. That is no longer speculation. Major organisations are investing in connected transaction networks and reorganising when information is collected, how it moves and how different stages of the customer journey connect. Independent conveyancers therefore face a more important choice than simply whether to adopt technology. They need to consider whose infrastructure they are prepared to become dependent upon.
They can continue competing primarily on price while carrying increasing workloads inside customer journeys increasingly shaped by much larger organisations. Or they can compete on expertise, service, independence and speed, supported by infrastructure that removes friction while allowing them to retain control of their own businesses and professional relationships. The Maverick conveyancer belongs firmly in the second camp.
They should be properly paid for their expertise. They should receive better-prepared transactions. They should not spend their day repeatedly chasing information that could have been collected earlier. They should have access to skilled independent search professionals rather than simply being handed more raw data to process. And most importantly, they should not have to exchange commercial independence for digital convenience. An open door into somebody else's network is not the same thing as having control over your own future.
The profession is already warning about the economics
There is another reason why this matters. Concerns around referral fees, panel-management costs, downward pressure on legal fees and the influence of introducers are increasingly being voiced by conveyancers themselves.
Solicitor Sally Holdway has discussed how referral fees and panel managers can drive price competition and leave firms with less control over the fees they charge. View the LinkedIn discussion
Solicitor Philip Armstrong has questioned rising panel costs and why conveyancers should effectively have to pay fees simply to act for lender clients, while arguing that continually suppressing conveyancing fees is unsustainable. Read his LinkedIn post
Conveyancer Rowena Slater-Reay has called for agents, brokers and panel managers to stop demanding referral fees and ever-lower conveyancing quotes, making the important point that the client is the home mover, not the organisation providing the referral. Read the LinkedIn discussion
That same discussion includes Roxanne Barker of Fix My Legals, describing a broker prepared to remain with a conveyancing provider despite poor communication and unhappy clients because it was receiving a £650 referral fee.
These are not isolated voices.
The Conveyancing Task Force has described referral fees between estate agents, panel managers, introducers and conveyancers as a "hidden tax" on home moving. Read the report
The Council for Licensed Conveyancers' 2026 review also found referral payments reaching as much as £900 plus VAT, alongside concerns about competition, financial sustainability and professional independence. Read the CLC review
This is part of what we are deliberately trying not to reproduce.
We do not support referral-fee models or lead-generation platforms that charge professionals substantial subscriptions and then charge again to view, access or compete for potential opportunities.
Our aim is for estate agents, conveyancers, brokers and other property professionals to build their own relationships, respond openly to opportunities and be properly rewarded for the work they actually do. Technology should facilitate professional relationships, not monetise every introduction between the people using it.
Using the Moving Hub does not mean replacing existing systems, paying for integrations or taking on another complex implementation.
Conveyancers pay £47 a month, with no third-party integrations or specialist setup required. Once accepted into the Maverick Movement, they log in and are ready to go.
Modern infrastructure, without surrendering control of the business you worked so hard to build. Independence still has enormous value. But independence without infrastructure is becoming increasingly difficult to defend.
The home-moving market is being rebuilt now. The question for independent conveyancers is no longer simply whether they will be allowed to participate. It is whether they will help shape the infrastructure they rely upon, or eventually find themselves dependent upon infrastructure shaped by organisations competing for the same customer.