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Sam covers personal finance topics, from the best savings rates to the reasons mortgage lenders say no. He enjoys crunching the numbers to help consumers get ahead.
Nationwide Building Society has become the first provider to offer mortgage deeds that can be signed digitally and without a witness.
The Building Society says this is just one part of continued efforts to digitalise and speed up the homebuying process.
Here, we explain what this means for you, whether other lenders are likely to follow, and how it fits into the government’s wider plans to reform the property market.
If you’re buying a property or remortgaging with Nationwide, you may now be able to sign your mortgage deed electronically, provided your conveyancer is set up to use Qualified Electronic Signature (QES).
Nationwide has worked with HM Land Registry, Your Conveyancer and Veyco to introduce the change. It follows HM Land Registry’s decision in August to allow QES for mortgage applications.
QES verifies who signed the deed, reduces the risk of tampering and has the same legal status as a handwritten signature witnessed in person. Most importantly, it can speed along the exchanging of contracts.
Nicholas Mendes of John Charcol mortgage brokers says this should mean less reliance on printing, posting and arranging for documents to be witnessed at short notice, and more certainty at a stage where transactions are most vulnerable to falling through.
Nationwide came joint-top of our table in our survey of the best mortgage lenders and and is our only Which? Recommended Provider. It managed this by demonstrating excellent customer satisfaction and consistently close to market-leading rates for a wide range of consumers.
To find out more about our only WRP, head to the Nationwide lender review. You'll find feedback from real mortgage customers and Nationwide's best rates.
But it's not just Nationwide that we've reviewed. We've rated 21 lenders on their customer service, rate competitiveness and more.
Nationwide’s move could make the process smoother for its own customers, but the wider impact will depend on whether other lenders adopt the same approach.
So which lenders will follow suit, and when could it happen? To find out, we asked the 10 largest mortgage lenders, according to the latest UK Finance data.
Skipton Building Society said its testing and adopting tools to make the mortgage process simpler, including electronic signatures, and aims to have this in place by April.
NatWest told us it is actively exploring the ability to sign mortgage deeds electronically without a witness through its partnership with Pexa, and that it's supportive of QES.
HSBC said it is actively working to implement electronic signing of mortgage deeds, but could not confirm when this would be rolled out.
Leeds Building Society already allows remortgage customers to sign mortgage deeds electronically, although this is not currently available for first-time buyers or home movers.
Coventry Building Society said it does not currently offer the option but is exploring innovations that could help make the buying process smoother.
Yorkshire Building Society said it has no immediate plans to implement this. However, it says it's always looking for opportunities to further enhance the mortgage processes, so will consider it as part of ongoing efforts.
Barclays did not provide a comment. Santander said it had nothing to add at this stage. Lloyds Banking Group did not respond to our request for information before publication.
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Nationwide’s new policy is not the only change planned to improve the homebuying process. In September, the government announced a consultation on a series of reforms.
The key changes proposed were:
Sellers and estate agents will be required to provide buyers with more details about a property upfront. This would include information on the home’s condition, leasehold costs and the length of any property chain.
The approach would bring the rest of the UK closer to the system used in Scotland, where valuations and surveys are provided upfront as part of a seller’s home report.
Research has shown this leads to fewer failed transactions and faster completions.
Buyers and sellers could choose to sign binding conditional contracts that include a financial penalty if one party pulls out after an offer has been accepted.
Introduce mandatory qualifications and a new code of practice for estate, letting and managing agents. The aim is to raise standards, improve transparency and boost consumer trust.
The 12-week consultation closed at the end of 2025. The government has said it will publish a roadmap in winter 2025 to 2026.
February has seen mortgage rates edge up and down as lenders respond to changes in the cost of offering the loans.
In recent days, more lenders have begun cutting rates again. However, some providers are still making small increases. For example, Lloyds Bank raised selected fixed rates by 0.05 percentage points.
Ultimately, the changes seen in February have been modest and will have a limited impact on the monthly cost of your mortgage.
If you take out a £250,000 mortgage over 25 years, a change of 0.05 percentage points would alter monthly payments by around £6.
For someone remortgaging with £200,000 left to repay over 10 years, the same change would affect monthly costs by just over £5.
