Reinventing Property Compliance
Over the last 10 years as we have evolved into a digital first society so has how we prove our identity.
10 years ago, most identity checks were done in person, with consumers having to physically travel to their estate agents or conveyancers to verify their ID. As new technologies emerged, our lives shifted more and more online and consumer expectations changed. Buyers wanted to be able to conduct their compliance checks online and in their own time and the Property sector had to adjust or get left behind.
Changes in regulation and consumer behaviour have driven the adoption of digital identity verification services from providers such as Credas and other IDSPs, making it easier to verify your identity remotely. However, multiple layers of verification are still required at different stages of the home-buying journey, creating friction and prolonging the process.
Estate agents and conveyancers are under growing pressure to meet ever-evolving Anti-Money Laundering (AML) and identity verification requirements thanks to the rise in fraud, while still delivering a fast, seamless experience for buyers and sellers. Each instruction brings familiar frustrations: repeated ID checks, duplicated documents, inconsistent standards across companies, and valuable time lost to compliance administration rather than progressing transactions.
Despite advances in digital identity verification, property compliance remains largely fragmented. The same individual may be asked to verify their identity multiple times, often using the same documents, simply because there is no secure, trusted way to reuse compliance checks. The result is inefficiency for property professionals, friction for homebuyers, and unnecessary cost for the industry as a whole.
As more of our lives move online and transactions are being completed remotely and across borders, this model is no longer sustainable.
Across the Property and PropTech sectors, a shift is underway toward reusable digital identity and compliance, where individuals can verify themselves once and securely share that verification with multiple trusted parties. For the property sector, this represents a significant opportunity: reduced duplication, improved client experience, and stronger, more consistent compliance outcomes.
This e-book explores how reusable compliance can work in practice for estate agents and conveyancers. It breaks down the regulatory landscape, addresses common concerns around risk and reliance, and outlines what good reusable compliance should look like—secure, auditable, and aligned with UK AML regulations.
As the leading digital identity verification provider within the property sector, Credas has spent years helping firms meet their AML obligations through robust, technology-driven solutions. Building on this experience, we are preparing to launch the Credas Compliance Wallet — a reusable compliance solution designed specifically for property transactions.
Resuable compliance isn’t about replacing human judgement, it is about rethinking how compliance is delivered, making it more efficient, more consistent, and better suited to the realities of modern property transactions.
ID verification – where are we now?
Although digital ID verification through providers such as Credas is growing year on year, many estate agents and conveyancers are still carrying out manual ID verification checks, which are widely susceptible to abuse and fraud, particularly if the ID is shared over email or other messaging services.
The Past: Manual checks
For many years, AML checks during the home buying process were largely manual and heavily reliant on in-person interactions. Buyers and sellers were required to visit estate agents or conveyancers with physical identity documents, often taking time off work to do so. Copies of passports, driving licences, and proof of address were taken, certified, filed, and stored, only for the same process to be repeated again at a later stage or by another party in the transaction. Each firm operated in isolation, with no way to securely rely on checks already completed elsewhere, which made compliance repetitive and labour-intensive.
This approach placed a significant administrative burden on property professionals and created inconvenience for consumers, while still leaving room for inconsistency, human error, and delays that could slow down an already complex home buying journey.
The Present: Digital Checks
As a society, we have become inherently digital. From remote working, to communications, to everyday transactions, consumers now expect to complete tasks from anywhere in the world, at anytime, including proving their identity.
The need for a more secure digital verification process led to companies like Credas developing new technologies that helped aid remote verification using the highest level of identity assurance using advanced technologies such as NFC document authentication, liveness detection, biometric facial recognition and document forensics.
However, not all digital ID checks are carried out through certified Identity Service Providers (IDSPs), and consumers still share identity documents via other digital methods, which has led to insecure and easily manipulated processes. In a recent survey we conducted with over 1,000 homeowners, 62% of respondents had shared their identity documents via email, and 10% had shared via WhatsApp, leaving themselves exposed to identity theft.
Consumers are now starting to realise the need for IDSPs in order to keep their data safe, but one pain-point still remains, and that’s the frustration in having to constantly repeat ID checks multiple times. With new legislation, government initiatives and technological advances a solution is coming…
The Future: Digital ID
As consumer behaviour changes, the next step in the evolution of proving we are who we say we are is the emergence of digital IDs. With countries all around the world developing their own digital ID protocols as well private alternatives, it represents the biggest shift we’ve seen in hundreds of years and is set to transform compliance within the property sector.
How will digital ID work?
For centuries, people have relied on physical documents to prove their identity. Over time, these documents have evolved, incorporating increasingly sophisticated security features, from wax seals and photographs to holograms and cryptographic chips, all designed to make identity fraud ever more difficult.
Yet despite these advances, identity documents remain fundamentally limited. They are still physical artefacts: static snapshots of who someone was at the moment of issuance. All of that is going to change with digital ID.
The Four Core Roles in a Digital Identity Verification Journey
Every digital identity verification process involves four distinct parties, each with a clearly defined role within a trusted ecosystem:
The holder – The individual to whom the identity belongs. The holder controls and presents their certified digital identity credential, typically stored within a digital wallet, which has been issued by a trusted and accredited source.
The relying party– The organisation or service that needs to verify an individual’s identity. The relying party requests access to specific identity credentials from the IDSP to meet their compliance requirements and confirm they are engaging with a genuine and eligible person
The IDSP – The intermediary that enables trust between the holder and the relying party. The IDSP validates that the digital identity credential being presented is authentic, has not been tampered with, and was issued by a trusted and certified issuer, in line with recognised standards and trust frameworks.
The issuer – The organisation that creates and issues the digital identity credential. This is typically a government body (such as the Home Office in the UK) or a trusted private-sector organisation such as a bank or an accredited identity service provider. Issuers must meet defined assurance and governance standards to be recognised as trusted sources.
Decentralised vs Centralised Identity
The debate between centralised and decentralised digital identity models centres on trust, control, resilience, and choice. A centralised digital ID model is typically built around a single identity issued or verified by a central authority, most commonly government, which acts as the definitive source of truth.
In this model, one credential underpins all identity usage, with associated attributes, credentials, and transaction history linked back to that central record. Proponents argue this delivers simplicity, consistency, and strong assurance, particularly for public services and statutory use cases.
However, it also concentrates risk, creates a single point of failure, and raises concerns around surveillance, scalability, and citizen control.
By contrast, a decentralised model enables multiple certified private-sector providers to issue and manage digital identity credentials within an agreed trust framework. Digital wallets can be created by trusted organisations, allowing individuals to hold, manage, and selectively share different credentials for different purposes.
This approach increases resilience, avoids vendor or state lock-in, and promotes competition and innovation, while giving citizens greater autonomy and choice over how their identity data is used. Rather than one centrally issued government digital identity that connects all interactions, decentralised models support context-specific use cases that minimise data sharing while still enabling reuse across sectors.
In practice, the future is likely to be hybrid, combining strong government-backed standards with a decentralised ecosystem that balances trust, flexibility, and user empowerment.
Digital ID in the UK
The UK’s digital identity landscape is rapidly evolving, shaped by government initiatives, private-sector trust frameworks and legislative reform.
The UK government has already rolled out its first digital ID, the HM Armed Forces digital Veterans Card, which veterans can download to the GOV.UK One Login app to prove their status securely on their smartphones, with plans to expand its use online and add additional credentials over time. Alongside this, the government has announced a UK digital driving licence will be available in early 2026, while the debate on a national digital ID card continues.
In order for an individual to share their digital ID with a relying party, such as employers, banks, landlords and estate agents, the verifying party will need to use a DIATF-certified relying party who can accept and validate their digital credentials such as the veteran card or future digital driving licences, ensuring compliance with government-endorsed standards for security, privacy and interoperability.
Digital ID around the world
Digital identity adoption is accelerating worldwide, driven by improving access to public services, reducing financial inclusion and preventing fraud.
Europe: a standards-led, interoperable approach
The European Union is advancing digital identity through eIDAS 2.0, which establishes the legal and regulatory foundation for the Digital ID. The legislation mandates cross-border interoperability, high levels of assurance, strong user control, and regulated trust under harmonised legal and technical standards. Under eIDAS 2.0, EU Member States are required to make digital ID available by the end of 2026, with several countries including Denmark, Norway, and Spain already implementing digital identity schemes.
North America: credential-led adoption
In America digital ID is a taking a more decentralised approach with each states/provinces issuing their own digital credentials such as mobile driving licences (mDLs). Apple and Google have quickly moved to support these emerging new digital IDs working in partnership with the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) who will now accept phone-based IDs at over 250 airport checkpoints for domestic travel only.
Africa: Government led solutions
Many countries in Africa such as Kenya and Nigeria are deploying digital ID systems to improve access to government services. The adoption and success of these programmes has been hindered by the lack of robust digital infrastructure and socio-economic inequalities.
Asia: large-scale national programmes
Countries such as India have demonstrated population-scale adoption through national digital ID schemes, showing how digital identity can underpin public services, payments, and private-sector onboarding. Singapore leads the way with its Singpass digital ID being used by approximately 97% of adults. It supports biometric login, pre-filled government data, digital signatures and access to thousands of services, from tax filing to banking.
Digital ID vs Digital Wallets?
Digital ID and digital wallets serve distinct but complementary roles within modern identity ecosystems. Digital ID establishes and verifies an individual’s identity, while a digital wallet, by contrast, securely stores that verified identity alongside reusable credentials and attributes.
| Digital ID | Digital Wallets |
|---|---|
| Officially issued identity credentials. | Stores and manages credentials, including digital IDs. |
| Typically represents a single, unique identity instance issued such as a passport or driving licences. | Can hold multiple digital identities and credentials, potentially issued by different providers and at different assurance levels, including digital verified physical documents. |
| Typically limited to core identity attributes such as name, date of birth, nationality and address. | Can contain additional attributes such as qualifications, employment status, licences etc |
| User-centric allowing selective sharing of the digital ID or elements of it. | User-centric, allowing selective sharing of different credentials from the same wallet or elements of them. |
| Self-contained single source of identity credential that is independent of any other digital IDs that are tied to the holder. | Designed to be interoperable, allowing the holder to share their credentials with other wallets. |
| Designed to meet strong data security standards, but lacking the independent oversight and regulatory separation typically present in private-sector systems. | Designed to be meet strong data security standards and independently assessed against the Trust Framework. |
| Contain minimal metadata of how credentials have been used over time, or how they are shared, which restricts auditability and ongoing assurance. | It can also contain additional metadata, such as when and where the wallet was created, when credentials were added or updated, and how they have been shared historically, creating a high-veracity audit trail. |
5 types of Digital Wallets we may all have in the future
Employment Wallet – Used to prove an individual’s right to work in the UK, this wallet can also securely store verified employment credentials such as professional qualifications, trade accreditations, licences, and ongoing compliance checks. It enables employers and recruiters to quickly confirm eligibility and credentials while reducing repeat checks and administrative burden.
Proof of Age Wallet – Used to verify an individual’s age both online and in person, this wallet allows users to confirm that they meet an age requirement without disclosing unnecessary personal information such as their full date of birth. It supports privacy-preserving age checks across retail, hospitality, digital services, and age-restricted content.
Homeowner Wallet – Used to prove property ownership, this wallet can also contain key compliance and transactional information such as title details, mortgage status, source-of-funds evidence, and historical property checks. It supports smoother onboarding for conveyancers, estate agents, lenders, and insurers by enabling trusted reuse of verified property and financial information.
Drivers Wallet – Used to store a digital driving licence, this wallet can also include verified vehicle ownership details, insurance policies, MOT status, and relevant compliance records. It enables drivers, insurers, fleet operators, and mobility providers to quickly confirm eligibility and coverage, both digitally and at the roadside.
Travel & Border Wallet – Used to store passport credentials, visa or immigration status, travel permissions, and health or security attestations, supporting streamlined identity checks for airlines, border authorities, and international travel services.
The Legislative Framework
- The UK Data (Use and Access) Act 2025 is a wide-ranging statute enacted on 19 June 2025 that modernises the UK’s data governance regime and establishes a statutory framework for Digital Verification Services (DVS) by setting a trust framework, accredited conformity assessment, and a publicly available DVS register of certified providers.
- The Digital Identity and Attributes Trust Framework sets UK standards for trusted digital identity services, defining rules on governance, privacy, security and interoperability to ensure safe, reusable, and reliable digital identity verification.
- GPG 45 (Good Practice Guide 45) is a UK government standard that defines how organisations should conduct identity verification. It sets requirements for identity evidence, verification processes, confidence levels, and fraud controls to ensure consistent, secure, and auditable identity checks across digital and in-person services.
- Schemes under the Digital Identity and Attributes Trust Framework are defined assurance arrangements that specify how digital identity services must operate to meet statutory and regulatory requirements, including prescribed standards.
- Digital Verification Services (DVS) are entities that provide identity verification and similar services that have certified against the Trust Framework and schemes, meaning the verifying party can rely upon them to verify the holders credentials.
- The relying party requests the certified identity credentials from the holder. By using a certified DVS to enable this process they are given added assurance that they can trust the results presented to them. For certain standards like Right to Work, a certified DVS is required to meet the standard.
- The holder shares their trusted credentials with the relying party via the DVS who is able to authenticate its genuinity.
- Government issued physical ID could include passports, driving licences, Visas or national ID cards if available in their country of origin.
- Government issued digital ID could include digital versions of passports, driving licences or a new digitally only issued form of ID. In order for the verifying party to access these credentials they must use a certified DVS to ensure the data is securely accessed and authenticated. Derived credentials can then be held within privately issued wallets.
- In addition to Government issued ID credentials, DVS’ may incorporate trusted third-party sources such as credit reference agencies, banks and utilities companies to enhance the data within the wallet and provide independent verification against the information the holder provides.
- While the Trust Framework sets out the legislation for the use and creation of digital ID standards in the UK some government agencies have created their own non-certified standards such as HMLR’s Safe Harbour standards and Companies House’s Director Verification requirements. These standards generally follow GPG 45 best practices but are not supported by the Trust Framework and there is no certification process to ensure a DVS actually meets the standards when they claim to.
- Under the DIATF, identity information and attributes may be securely held in digital wallets in order to make the sharing of credentials easier. The holder controls who has access to their wallet and what information is stored within it. Wallets can hold not just derived digital credentials but can hold verified ID checks completed by a DVS, essentially creating a digital ID from the original physical source.
Why do we need digital ID?
The way we prove who we are has not kept pace with how modern transactions take place. Property purchases are increasingly completed remotely, often involving multiple parties, tight timelines, and heightened regulatory scrutiny.
Relying on physical documents and manual checks in a digital-first society introduces friction, delay, and risk. Digital ID provides a secure, standardised way to verify identity online, reducing dependence on paper documents that can be lost, altered, or misused.
How digital ID benefits the public
Greater data transparency – Digital ID gives individuals far greater control over their personal data. Rather than repeatedly sharing copies of sensitive documents, individuals can choose who they share their information with and see exactly where it has been used.
Data minimisation – Crucially, digital ID allows for selective sharing, meaning individuals only disclose what is necessary for a specific purpose, such as confirming age without revealing their address for example or even their actual date of birth.
Faster ID checks – Digital ID will also support faster transactions, removing the need for in-person visits or repeated document requests. You will no longer have to go looking in drawers for old documents and getting them certified as your digital ID will always be in the palm of your hand.
Improved inclusivity – From an inclusivity perspective, digital identity can reduce reliance on physical documents that are costly to obtain or replace, which can be particularly burdensome after life events like marriage or divorce. Unlike physical documents, digital identity does not expire in the same way and can be updated as circumstances change, making it more accessible for a wider range of people.
How digital ID helps the property sector
As fraud becomes more sophisticated and regulation more demanding, the property sector needs a method of identity verification that is reliable, scalable, and fit for a world where people expect to transact from anywhere, at any time.
For estate agents and conveyancers, digital ID delivers more secure, trusted, and up-to-date identity information. Certified digital identity checks provide greater assurance than manual processes and reduce the risk of fraud or outdated documentation being relied upon.
Access to verified data such as previous names and address history makes customer due diligence more accurate and efficient, particularly in higher-risk transactions. By improving the quality and reliability of identity information, digital ID supports stronger compliance outcomes while reducing administrative effort and enabling smoother property transactions overall.
While digital ID has received a lot attention, it is only about one-tenth of the over-all process when it comes to a property transaction – a small cog of a much larger process . To truly transform the property sector we need more than just reusable ID, we need reusable compliance…
What is reusable compliance?
While digital ID will make ID checks a lot faster and mores secure, that’s just the start of the compliance process for property professionals. Once a trusted identity has been established, there’s still a significant amount of checking, validating and monitoring that needs to happen which is often repeated throughout the property transaction.
Less checks, more trust
On average, a home buyer needs to complete compliance checks 5.4 times throughout a property transaction, causing friction and frustration across the board. Reusable compliance will change this.
Reusable compliance wallets will allow homebuyers/sellers to easily share their previous checks with other parties within the transactions such as conveyancers, estate agents and mortgage brokers. Compliance wallets will not only hold ID credentials but PEPs and Sanctions data, address & mortality checks, Source of Funds and potentially much more.
Wallets will change the way we do compliance in the property sector, making things faster, more secure and frictionless. Homebuyers will be able to easily share their compliance data with other parties in chain at the click of a button.
Not only will they make compliance checks faster they will also offer an additional layer of assurance by enabling the relying party to see a full audit profile of previous checks, helping to combat one-time fraud and AI generated identities. As the customer upgrades or refreshes their checks over time, that historical audit trail improves the veracity of the check which helps to also guard against fraudulent checks, which is a big problem in the industry.
The citizen in control of their credentials
What underpins the whole wallet concept is consent. The consumer will have full control over who sees their data and will need to consent to any form of sharing. This was the most important concept for us; after conducting a recent survey of over 1000 homebuyers where over 70% of them stated it was very important to have complete control over their data.
As an example, when an estate agent needs to complete their due diligence, they will send a wallet request to the individual, the individual will then need to consent to sharing their data, having complete control over how much they share and who they share it with. The estate agent will then have access to what the individual has allowed.
How to prepare for reusable compliance
Before reusable compliance can be adopted, firms need strong internal foundations. Policies and procedures should clearly define how customer due diligence is carried out, when checks need to be refreshed, and how reliance is assessed.
Risk-based approaches will become even more important, placing greater emphasis on understanding risk profiles and knowing when enhanced due diligence is required.
Companies that are already confident in their AML frameworks, record keeping, and audit trails will find it far easier to transition to reusable compliance models as they emerge.
Update your data policy & practices
Reusable compliance places consent at the centre of the process. Consumers expect greater control over their data, and regulation is moving in the same direction.
Property professionals should review how client data is currently requested, stored, and shared. Manual processes such as collecting documents via email or messaging apps not only introduce risk but are incompatible with reusable compliance models.
Preparing now means adopting secure systems, improving transparency around data use, and ensuring consent is clearly captured and auditable. This builds trust with clients while also supporting future compliance requirements.
Embracing Trusted Digital Identity Standards
As digital identity moves into the mainstream, estate agents and conveyancers should become familiar with standards recognised by the Digital Identity and Attributes Trust Framework.
Preparing for reusable compliance means moving away from ad hoc or inconsistent digital checks and towards providers that align with established governance, security, and assurance requirements, such as certified IDSPs. This helps ensure that identity data can be trusted, reused, and shared in a compliant way.
It also reduces uncertainty around reliance, as regulators increasingly look for evidence that digital identity checks meet recognised benchmarks rather than simply being “digital”.
Training Teams for Change
Technology alone will not deliver reusable compliance. Teams need to understand how and why processes are changing. Training should focus on digital identity, risk-based decision making, and the importance of maintaining high-quality audit trails. Staff should feel confident in explaining new processes to clients, particularly around consent and data sharing. The property firms that invest in education early will be better placed to adopt reusable compliance tools quickly and effectively.
Looking Ahead: Digital ID & Compliance in 2026
As customer due diligence comes under greater scrutiny, and housing transactions continue to slow down, in turn the need for reusable digital compliance as a solution to both becomes quite clear.
In 2026, homebuyers will no longer accecpt outdated compliance that not only slows the transaction process down but puts their data at risk. They will instead insist on using digital ID checks that will enable them to share their credentials in a push of a button and give them control over their data.
Estate agents and conveyancers who prepare now by strengthening their processes, embracing trusted digital standards, and modernising their data practices will be well positioned for the next phase of property compliance.
Reusable compliance is not a single product or switch that can be turned on overnight. It represents a shift in how estate agents and conveyancers think about onboarding, risk, and the flow of information across a transaction. As regulation becomes more structured and digital identity frameworks mature, there are clear steps property professionals can take now to prepare.
The work of the Office for Digital Identities & Attributes and the Trust Framework is a really strong bedrock for private digital verification services to thrive in. We’re now seeing this era of reusable compliance emerge, and it’s something that the Data (Use and Access) Act 2025 has certainly set the foundations for in 2026.
