In February 2026, Nationwide Building Society announced that it had become the first lender in the UK to allow mortgage deeds to be signed using a Qualified Electronic Signature (QES) in a fully remote format.

📌This became possible after HM Land Registry approved the use of Qualified Electronic Signatures for relevant registration procedures in August 2025.

🏠Before the introduction of digital signatures, the mortgage process in the UK remained partly offline. Even when a loan was approved online, the mortgage deed still had to be signed by hand. The document required a witness and then had to be sent by post or courier to a solicitor and subsequently to the Land Registry.

📊According to market data, this process directly affected transaction timelines, and more than 30 percent of residential property transactions still take over 17 weeks to complete. The use of Qualified Electronic Signatures removes the need to send physical documents and allows them to be submitted for registration immediately after signing. At the market level, this is expected to reduce certain stages by several days and shorten the overall transaction timeline by 1 to 3 weeks.

💻A Qualified Electronic Signature is a type of electronic signature that requires identity verification of the signer. Unlike a standard electronic signature, a QES is issued through a certified provider. It has the same legal effect as a handwritten signature witnessed in person.