Our company history

LMS (formerly Legal Marketing Services) was established in 1991.

The goal was to create a serious alternative to 'factory conveyancing', which struggled to keep up with the peaks and troughs associated with remortgage work.

To this end, we set about creating a panel of high street law firms to serve a dual purpose:

• Providing law firms with work from lenders they wouldn't normally have access to.
• Whilst providing lenders with essential legal services from efficient, high-quality law firms - regardless of transaction volumes.

It proved to be a highly successful formula.

How we've grown

What started as a simple matchmaking service has now grown beyond all recognition.

Today, LMS is one of the UK's largest providers of outsourced property services, helping to enable loans of more than £26 billion a year.

Despite our rapid growth however, we have always stayed true to our guiding principle of putting customers at the centre of our business. Perhaps that's why Abbey, one of our very first clients, remains with us today - alongside other major lenders such as Nationwide, Bristol & West and Bank of Ireland.

What we've achieved

Our investment in technology has been extensive - and groundbreaking.

For example, we created our own online case management system known as STARS (Servicer Tracking and Reporting System) to manage the allocation and tracking of work amongst our panel of law firms. It now has over 50,000 registered users and the ability to integrate fully with all of the UK's legal and survey case management systems.

This drive to keep up with client demand, coupled with our technological expertise and experience provides us with a very strong platform for continued growth.

Our status today

Up until July 2002, LMS was owned by its founder shareholder and three other Executive Directors.

In July 2002, the business was acquired by Partners for Finance, a company established in 2001 with backing from 3i; Europe's leading venture capital company.

In January 2006, funding was transferred from 3i to private equity firm RJD Partners.

Under the deal, RJD Partners bought a 51 percent shareholding in LMS Holdings with the balance now owned by our senior management.