GUEST ARTICLE: What needs to be in place for Smart Data in the property sector to work for consumers?

The UK property market covers 28 million homes, and sees roughly 1.2 million transactions each year. Consumers in the property sector are typically looking to buy, sell or rent a home.  But over half (54%) consistently report stress during property sales or purchases due to unclear information, excessive paperwork—often involving about 130 documents per transaction— lack of transparency about processes and timelines, and limited automation.  And in the rental market, outdated tenant screening procedures combined with ongoing property shortages are making it difficult for consumers to secure a property.

Better data sharing in the property sector could help address these problems, and the Department of Business and Trade (DBT) has identified the property sector as a priority for new Smart Data schemes. Smart data enables consumers to share their data with businesses and other organisations. This sharing of data about properties includes property ownership, transaction history, property valuations, land registry records, planning permissions, geographic information, and energy performance certificates (EPCs). And relevant data about consumers as buyers or renters might include identity information, financial records and employment status checks.  This data-sharing could transform the consumer’s experience of the property sector in several ways:

1. Better and quicker decision-making for the consumer: Consumers having access to key information upfront helps them make an informed decision about a property without losing time or money on research and validation. 
2. Smoother and quicker onboarding for the consumer: Professional services (such as property agents, legal representatives and brokers) can access information about the consumer early in the process, and in a way that reduces friction and repetition for the consumer.
3. Efficient processes and interactions by professional services: Professional services involved in a property transaction can interact and cooperate with each other more effectively and efficiently as the transaction progresses.
4. More accurate information: Minimising the manual exchange of physical paperwork reduces the risk of errors or papers going missing during a transaction.

Work is beginning to develop smart data in the property sector: in autumn 2025, the Regulators’ Pioneer Fund, a government grant for regulatory innovation, awarded just over £742k to the Council for Licensed Conveyancers, the Open Property Data Association, and Raidiam for developing the Property Data Trust Framework, which brings together data from bodies such as HM Land Registry, local authorities and conveyancers. And in summer 2025, the winner of DBT’s Smart Data Challenge prize 2025, Moverly, aims to develop a product to digitalise property data, so consumers can be presented with more information upfront when purchasing a home.

However, it is vital that smart data schemes in the property sector are rolled out in the right way. Our 2024 policy paper, ‘Building Consumer Trust in Smart Data,’ identified that smart data schemes without the right safeguards can lead to risks of poor-quality products and services, a lack of meaningful consent, risks to consumer safety, and the exploitation of vulnerable consumers. If these risks materialise in the property sector, then consumers will be unable to benefit from efficiency or innovation, while also potentially putting themselves or their data at risk.

We asked experts from the property sector, including charities, trade associations, and regulators in the UK, “What must be in place for smart data in the property sector to work for consumers?”

Trust and wide adoption

By Timothy Douglas, Head of Policy and Campaigns, Propertymark

Propertymark is the UK’s largest professional body of Property agents, with over 19,000 members who voluntarily register to meet higher standards. Propertymark’s  Policy and Campaigns team works to support its members’ views and support positive change in the property sector. 

"In just eight years, we’ve seen 78% of property transactions progress from offer to exchange of contracts within 12 weeks to 29%. Just under one in three transactions also fell though in 2024, it’s clear that we need to rethink how we sell homes. Smart Data has the potential to facilitate the change that previous interventions such as Home Information Packs aimed to achieve but failed to do so, where single data source for information on a property can be developed that facilitates greater cooperation by all parties involved in the process.

For consumers to see the benefits, that being quicker transactions and fewer fall throughs, three objectives must be achieved.

Firstly, Smart Data needs to make the process simpler and easy for consumers to fully utilise. The Digital Market, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 requires sellers, their agent and legal representative to provide more information than ever to potential buyers. Smart Data in theory makes real time data sharing easier but this must be facilitated in a way that consumers can understand and make full use of. 

Secondly, the entire sector needs to adopt the new working practices that Smart Data can facilitate. Without the full adoption from the home buying and selling sector, we cannot progress from existing practices which are contributing to our inability to increase the speed of the process. 

Thirdly, the data itself that will facilitate the home buying and selling process must sit in a trusted source. Whether this is from HM Land Registry, another public body or shortlist of trusted providers, having trust in the data ensures that consumers can rely on its accuracy and that it cannot be misused. 

If these can be met, consumers can look forward to shorter transaction times, saving them a considerable amount of time and money."

Standardisation and digital skills

By Matthew Grenier, Business Development Director, the Housing Associations’ Charitable Trust (HACT)

HACT is a charity dedicated to the social housing sector. They focus on delivering value for residents and communities by offering insight-led products and services that promote innovation and foster cooperation.

"There are many potential applications for smart data to benefit social housing residents, from identifying damp and mould to improving resident engagement. For these to become a reality, housing associations need to ensure they have strong data governance in place, including clear policies for data collection, storage and usage, as well as defined internal data ownership and accountability. Critically – and this is where our UK Housing Data Standards can play a critical role – housing associations need clean, accurate and up-to-date data in consistent formats that can be shared across systems.

Additionally, not only do these systems need to speak with each other internally, but they also need to be interoperable with external systems, so that contractors, software companies and start-ups can easily integrate and ensure that smart data is benefiting residents.

Currently, however, residents are missing out on the benefits of smart data because these data governance foundations are not in place. Alongside technical limitations, there are also cultural and capability issues. The leadership within housing associations – both executives and Boards – need to understand and implement governance structures that improve data quality. Simultaneously, the sector needs to address the skills gap around data and technical expertise."

Security and accessibility

By Stephen Ward, Deputy CEO and Director of Strategy and External Relations, Council for Licensed Conveyancers (CLC)

The Council for Licensed Conveyancers (CLC) is the regulator of specialist conveyancing and probate lawyers, protecting consumers and fostering competition and innovation in the provision of legal services.

"Could smart data be the key to transforming the property market for consumers? At the Council for Licensed Conveyancers (CLC), we believe it could be achieved. We are working alongside the Digital Property Market Steering Group (DPMSG), with the Online Property Data Association (OPDA), and the tech firm Raidiam, developing a Smart Property Data Trust Framework and a sandbox to test the technical infrastructure needed to underpin the regulatory, security and governance standards for firms that need to access and share property data.

However, there are still some steps to go before smart data works for consumers:

Integration and standardisation are essential. Property information comes from many sources — land registries, utility providers, sensors, and estate databases — and often is not easily accessible to consumers when interacting with the property market. Furthermore, without consistent data standards, systems cannot interpret or compare data effectively. The data's provenance must be clear and collected in compatible formats to allow seamless sharing and easy analysis by consumers. 

Equally important are data governance and privacy protections. Property data includes sensitive financial and personal details, so compliance with data protection laws such as GDPR and transparent consent processes is vital to build consumer trust. Currently, property and consumer information, such as searches and identity, is shared through physical documents or emailed between parties, which opens security risks. If data flows through smart data products, this eliminates the need for using these insecure methods.

Finally, it is important to balance a digital approach, which may be comfortable for some, with non-digital alternatives. More needs to be done to address the needs of consumers who must be able to communicate with their conveyancer in a way that is convenient for them."

Scale up the ambition

Three clear themes emerge across these perspectives from industry, civil society and regulator, for smart data in the property sector to work for consumers:

• The need for clear and accessible information for consumers and communication with them, including non-digital options for consumer engagement 
• Data sources must be trusted, and consistent data standards must be used for comparisons between datasets and interoperability across systems
• Widespread adoption in the property sector is required for the full benefits to reach consumers, including developing digital skills among property professionals

These echo the research findings behind our model for smart data trust frameworks. Our model is based on principles of governance, scalability, and protection, with consumer consent and control at its core. Our scalability principle covers interoperability, accessibility and a common language to enable consumers to better access high-quality services, to reduce costs for businesses, and to support innovation and diversity in products and markets. Interoperability enables diverse technologies to work together, offering a seamless consumer experience and supporting cross-sector data sharing. Accessibility ensures smart data services are simple and user-friendly. And common language means using consistent terminology across smart data schemes, ensuring consumers clearly understand how their data is accessed, used, and protected.

This article is part of our guest article series, which examines the role of smart data in shaping society, the economy, and the digital future. If you missed it, catch up on the previous articles on open finance, open energy and on lessons learned from open banking.