“The mortgage industry performs extensive due diligence on the borrower. Yet the property itself, the lender's security, often remains largely unvalidated until weeks into the transaction. We believe that has to change."
As part of Woodhurst’s recent report, The Future of Specialist Mortgage Lending, we spoke to Home Sale Pack to understand how they are modernising the UK’s conveyancing process. An active member of the Open Property Data Association, the firm was founded in 2023 by solicitors Ruth Beeton and Simon Priestley to help homeowners prepare their properties for sale with confidence.
Home Sale Pack hosts digital packs containing all necessary information for home sales upfront, including identity confirmation, Land Registry documents and property information forms. By providing full transparency from the outset and identifying issues early in the process, it enables a smoother, more informed home-moving experience and mitigates the breakdown of sales in later stages.
Notably, the firm focuses on the conveyancing stage of the property selling process – an area which founders Ruth and Simon believe has been overlooked in modernisation efforts, although it is now attracting increasing attention. While conveyancers retain legal oversight and control, with Home Sale Pack they save time spent on manually pulling together various sources. Buyers can also check progress on their purchases in real time on personal dashboards, creating an enhanced experience across the board. We spoke to Home Sale Pack about the journey so far and their hopes for increased adoption of upfront information in property sales:
1. What is Home Sale Pack, and what led you to form the business?
Home Sale Pack was created to solve one of the biggest inefficiencies in the property market: buyers, lenders and brokers often commit significant time, money and effort before anyone properly assesses the property itself.
As practising property solicitors with more than 20 years’ experience, we repeatedly saw transactions fail because critical information only emerged several weeks into the process. Leasehold issues, planning restrictions, title defects, estate charges, missing consents and management information regularly caused delays, increased costs or complete transaction failures.
We founded Home Sale Pack to move this information to the very beginning of the transaction. By validating the property upfront, we enable everyone involved to make better-informed decisions earlier. Ultimately, we believe the property should be understood before a mortgage application progresses, not several weeks afterwards.
2. How does Home Sale Pack make the mortgage journey better?
The traditional mortgage journey focuses heavily on assessing the borrower. Affordability, income, credit history and identity are all carefully reviewed. The property itself often receives far less scrutiny until the legal process is well underway.
Home Sale Pack provides early visibility of the legal and property information that can impact lending decisions, including title matters, leasehold arrangements, planning considerations, estate charges and property-specific risks. This allows brokers and lenders to identify potential issues earlier, reducing surprises later in the process and giving borrowers greater certainty.
For borrowers, it means fewer unexpected issues and improved confidence. For lenders, it means a better understanding of the security of the property earlier in the journey.
3. Why do you believe the home buying and selling process remains so inefficient despite the technology and innovation available today?
Many parts of the process have evolved independently. Mortgage technology has improved. Estate agency technology has improved. Conveyancing systems have improved.
However, the property information itself still tends to move slowly between parties, often only becoming available after an offer has been accepted and legal work has commenced. The industry remains largely reactive rather than proactive.
A significant proportion of delays arise not because the information does not exist, but because it is obtained too late. The opportunity for the industry is not simply digitisation. It is moving critical information earlier so better decisions can be made sooner.
4. What benefits does Home Sale Pack deliver to borrowers, brokers, lenders and solicitors?
We see multiple benefits across these four parties. First off, we have borrowers gaining greater certainty, fewer unexpected issues, a better understanding of the property they are purchasing and a reduced risk of wasted expenditure. Meanwhile, brokers are able to support better-informed clients, improve transaction certainty and identify potential lending issues earlier. We also see lenders benefit from a clearer understanding of the property’s security, reduced avoidable fallout, better customer outcomes and stronger support for Consumer Duty objectives. And last but not least, solicitors tend to gain earlier access to key information, reducing duplication, minimising late-stage surprises and improving overall transaction efficiency.
5. Can you share an example where early property validation prevented wasted time, cost or a failed transaction?
We regularly encounter matters involving significant service charge liabilities, estate charges, lease restrictions or planning issues that are only identified several weeks into a transaction.
In one example, substantial future expenditure affecting a leasehold property became apparent only after legal work had progressed. The buyer had already incurred survey, mortgage and legal costs. Had the relevant information been reviewed at the outset, the buyer could have renegotiated, reconsidered the purchase or proceeded with full knowledge of the position.
The earlier issues are identified, the more options remain available to everyone involved.
6. Tell us about the exciting work you are doing with HM Land Registry.
We have been fortunate to work closely with HM Land Registry through innovation and collaboration initiatives. This engagement has helped us better understand the causes of delays, requisitions and application failures.
The insights gained through this collaboration have directly influenced our wider technology development, particularly around data quality, validation and reducing avoidable errors.
Our objective aligns closely with the wider industry ambition of improving certainty, reducing friction and supporting better outcomes across the property market.
7. What differentiates Home Sale Pack from other providers in the market?
Home Sale Pack has been developed by practising property solicitors working within live conveyancing businesses. The challenges we are solving are challenges we experience ourselves every day.
Rather than simply digitising existing processes, we focus on identifying and validating potential issues before they become problems. Our approach combines legal expertise, property knowledge and technology to provide meaningful insight rather than simply assembling documents. Ultimately, we are focused on helping people make better decisions earlier.
8. Why is it so important for lenders to validate the property upfront, particularly specialist lenders?
Lenders undertake extensive due diligence on borrowers. The property, however, is the security underpinning the loan.
Specialist lenders frequently deal with more complex cases, including unusual properties, leasehold arrangements, investment properties and non-standard circumstances. Early validation provides greater visibility of potential risks and allows informed decisions to be made before significant costs are incurred. This is particularly valuable where speed, certainty and customer outcomes are critical. Property risk should be understood as early as borrower risk.
9. How could a lender integrate Home Sale Pack into its existing lending process?
Home Sale Pack is designed to complement existing processes rather than replace them. A lender could:
- Offer the service to brokers at application stage.
- Introduce it as part of selected product lines.
- Use it within specialist or higher-risk lending segments.
- Deploy it within pilot cohorts to assess impact.
The objective is to provide earlier property intelligence that supports existing underwriting and customer journeys.
10. What would a pilot programme look like for a lender interested in testing the solution?
A pilot programme could be delivered with a small cohort of cases over a defined period. Together we would measure:
- Time savings.
- Early issue identification.
- Transaction fallout.
- Customer experience.
- Broker feedback.
- Operational benefits.
The pilot requires minimal process change and carries very little risk.
Even where no significant issues are identified, lenders gain valuable insight into their transaction pipeline and property risk profile. It is effectively a “no regrets” proposition: either issues are identified earlier, improving outcomes, or lenders gain reassurance that transactions are progressing as expected.
11. Looking ahead, what is your vision for Home Sale Pack and the wider lending ecosystem?
Our vision is simple: the industry should move from reactive problem-solving to proactive decision-making. We believe every transaction should begin with a clearer understanding of both the borrower and the property.
Over time, we see property validation becoming a standard part of the lending journey, helping improve certainty, reduce transaction failures and create better experiences for borrowers, brokers, lenders and legal professionals alike.
If we can help people make better decisions earlier, the entire ecosystem benefits.
Our spotlight on Home Sale Pack is timely. In June 2026, the UK government announced a home-buying shakeup intended to “slash delays, cut costs and stop sales falling through.” Alongside other rules set to be introduced, sellers and estate agents will have to provide key information in mandatory ‘sales packs’ at the point of listing. These packs will present a home’s condition, leasehold costs, and chain status to ensure informed decisions by buyers and speed up legal proceedings.
With government research finding that the average home purchase takes around 120 days, one in three sales falls through costing sellers around £400 million per year, and failed transactions cost the economy up to £1.5 billion every year, there is a need for innovation in this space. We’re excited to see what’s next for the future of Home Sale Pack.
Woodhurst continues to support innovation in the specialist lending sector. If you’re interested in exploring the themes discussed in this article further, please get in touch with lydia.coyle@woodhurst.com
