30% of UK property deals collapse before completion

Almost a third of UK property transactions fail before completion, according to government figures cited in a new Barclays and PwC report that identified homebuying as a priority target for tokenisation.

The report notes that the homebuying process remains highly fragmented, with payments, identity checks, legal records, approvals and asset transfers sitting across separate systems.

Tokenisation could connect identity, property title, mortgage contract and payment into a single integrated process, reducing transaction failures and speeding up completion. For developers, fewer fall-throughs could reduce completion risk and support homebuilding targets, while for individuals it could make moving home more predictable and less costly.

Remortgages are already among the first retail use cases being tested in the UK.

Seven of the UK’s largest banks are undertaking pilot activity under the Great British Tokenised Deposits programme, testing tokenised deposit transactions with remortgages and person-to-person payments via online marketplaces as the initial applications.

A tokenised deposit is a digital representation of a commercial bank deposit recorded on a distributed ledger, carrying the same claim on the issuing bank as a traditional deposit. Because rules can be embedded in the token, payments can execute automatically when conditions such as verified identity or completed legal checks are met.

The report found that tokenisation alone will not fix homebuying, and would need to work alongside digital identity, modernised land and legal records, secure access to trusted registries, open data and AI.

HM Land Registry modernisation and Companies House reform form part of the same enabling stack, and the report recommended the government ensure digital public infrastructure, including digital ID and key asset registers, is designed to connect with tokenised markets.

Probate is another high-friction process the report singled out.

Tokenised financial assets and digitally linked ownership records could give executors a clearer view of savings, investments and property interests, cutting the time families spend searching for assets and reconciling records manually.

The report cautioned that consumer-facing tokenisation should not remove all friction indiscriminately, as some checks protect customers. It called for strong customer protection built into tokenised products from the outset, including clear disclosures, robust identity controls, fraud prevention and routes to redress.

Barclays and PwC estimated tokenisation could lift annual UK economic output by up to £33 billion by 2035 across six modelled use cases including real estate.

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