The government’s call for evidence on smart data schemes closes on 1 October 2026, and the property industry is being actively encouraged to engage with it. The Open Property Data Association has made the appeal directly: if agents, conveyancers, lenders, and surveyors don’t put their views into this process, decisions will be made without them.
That’s worth taking seriously, because what’s being proposed isn’t minor. It’s a potential redesign of how data flows through a property transaction.
The Department for Business and Trade’s call for evidence sits within the government’s broader Smart Data Strategy 2035, and draws on powers created by the Data Use and Access Act 2025. In practical terms, smart data schemes would allow firms to share information with consumers and other businesses securely and electronically, with consumer consent at the centre of the framework.
For property transactions, the potential applications are significant. Title data, planning history, flood risk assessments, energy performance data, building safety records. Currently, much of this information sits in separate systems, accessed through different routes, at different speeds, at different costs. A properly designed smart data scheme could aggregate and share this data in structured, machine-readable formats, moving it through a transaction automatically rather than having solicitors request and await it in sequence.
The government’s Home Buying and Selling Roadmap, published in June 2026, set out a broader reform agenda. Smart data is the infrastructure that underpins it.
Anyone who has bought or sold property in the UK understands the frustration. The average transaction in England and Wales takes somewhere between 12 and 22 weeks from offer to completion, depending on complexity. A meaningful portion of that time is consumed by information-gathering that, in a well-designed digital system, would be near-instantaneous.
The cost isn’t just inconvenience. Deals fall through during extended transaction periods. In Norfolk and Suffolk, where we see buyers committing to purchases from other parts of the country and managing long chains, the vulnerability created by slow information flow is a genuine commercial risk. Buyers lose purchases. Sellers lose buyers. Everyone pays more in professional fees when the process runs long.
Faster, more reliable transactions are genuinely in the interests of everyone involved, buyers and sellers alike.
Maria Harris, chair of the OPDA, is candid about the complexity. In a recent interview she described the property sector as having “a lot of technical debt” to address before the reforms can deliver their potential. The ecosystem is fragmented: multiple registries, multiple data formats, legacy systems in conveyancing practices, inconsistent standards between local authorities.
The smart data consultation is, in part, an attempt to understand what’s actually possible before legislating for it. The government wants sector-specific evidence on use cases, on governance models, on what data is available and in what format. Without that grounding, the risk is a framework that works in theory and stalls in practice.
This is precisely why the call for evidence matters. The organisations that respond will shape how the schemes are designed. Those that don’t will inherit whatever the respondents agreed upon.
Our market has specific characteristics that would benefit from smarter data flows. Listed buildings, agricultural land, riparian rights, coastal erosion risk data, Historic England records, Environment Agency flood mapping: these are all information categories that routinely extend transaction timelines in Norfolk and Suffolk. Buyers purchasing a coastal property near Wells or Blakeney, or a historic farmhouse in the Broads, routinely wait weeks for searches and specialist reports that a smarter data infrastructure could surface in days.
The reform agenda also connects to buyer confidence. One of the underappreciated friction points in the high-value market is the gap between an offer being accepted and a buyer feeling sufficiently certain to proceed. Better, faster information reduces that gap. It makes transactions feel more controlled, less exposed to the unexpected.
The call for evidence runs until 1 October 2026. After that, the government will conduct feasibility analysis on the use cases identified, followed by formal consultation before any regulatory change. This is a multi-year process. The Home Buying and Selling Roadmap sets out a longer trajectory of reform, of which smart data is one component alongside mandatory material information disclosures and pre-transaction property packs.
The direction is clear, even if the timetable isn’t fixed. Property transactions in England and Wales will become more digital, more data-driven, and faster. The question is how well-designed those systems will be, and that depends substantially on whether the industry engages with the process now.
For buyers and sellers currently active in the market, the practical implications are some years away. What’s worth understanding is that the regulatory direction of travel is towards greater transparency and faster information flows. That’s broadly good for buyers, good for sellers, and good for the kind of professional practice that prioritises clarity over ambiguity.
For detailed market context across our coverage area, our property market reports cover 324 locations including Norwich, Aldeburgh, Wells-next-the-Sea, and Cromer.
