LMS, the UK’s leading provider of conveyancing services, has completed the first ever digital remortgage.
The company say the game-changing software could make remortgaging as straight-forward as a current account switch, enabling full automation of at least one in eight remortgages from the start and possibly as many as one in four.
LMS DART – which stands for Decisioning and Automated Remortgage Technology – can assess cases within seconds of all information being submitted and simplify the customer journey.
It launched with Integrar and O’Neill Patient Solicitors before being rolled out to additional firms and lenders after a successful BETA programme saw the completion of the first ever automated remortgage.
Nick Chadbourne, CEO at LMS, said: “This is a milestone development, not just for LMS but for the whole industry. It has the power to transform the remortgaging journey, with everyone standing to gain from tech designed to minimise manual processing, give the most accurate information possible and make the journey as simple as possible for the borrower.”
He predicted the level of remortgage activity in the next six months will push law firms and lenders to the limits of their capacity as interest rates are predicted to rise.
“Activity will increase as we approach the next mortgage product maturity peak and the news of rising rates will only exacerbate this,” he said.
“We wanted to take action to protect all parties – consumer, law firm and lender alike – and completing the first ever automated remortgage is a huge leap forward.
“The complex software allows cases to be assessed at the outset with a level of accuracy not seen in the industry to date and the automation of simple cases in this way will have a huge positive impact – even cases that cannot be automated will be improved as the decisioning software highlights the legal work required as well as allowing specialists more time to dedicate to them.”
Every year LMS successfully manages some 130,000 transactions, helping to enable more than £15bn in loans for intermediaries and lenders.