A Microsoft 365 failure rolls on as it “struggles to fix” problem on the UK's busiest day for moving home
Friday is traditionally the busiest day of the week for house moves, and this one started with many firms unable to rely on email. A global Microsoft 365 outage that began at about 6.26pm GMT on Thursday was still not fully fixed in the early hours of Friday, after Microsoft said its repairs were not producing a sustained recovery.
Outlook, Teams and SharePoint were among the services hit. Microsoft has said there is no sign of a cyber attack and has pointed to an overloaded process on its servers, but it had not given a time for full restoration. Administrators can follow incidents EX1550543 and MO1550821 on the Microsoft 365 service status page.
The UK felt it early. Outage tracker Downdetector said problem reports from Britain jumped tenfold at 5.43pm on Thursday, before many offices had closed, and the outage was still widespread as Europe woke up on Friday, with Microsoft saying it had yet to see a sustained recovery. The disruption also reached Microsoft's consumer services, including Outlook.com, so some homebuyers with Hotmail or Outlook addresses may have been cut off from their own inboxes as well as their conveyancer's.
It is not yet clear how many UK conveyancing firms, lenders or brokers have been caught up. But the timing is terrible. A completion depends on a string of confirmations passing between buyer's solicitor, seller's solicitor, lender and estate agent, and much of that traffic now runs through email.
Where a completion can get stuck
The money itself moves over the banking system, not Microsoft, so a mortgage advance or a deposit isn't stuck just because Outlook is. The problem is everything around the payment. Conveyancers request mortgage funds, send completion statements, confirm that money has landed and tell the other side they can release the keys, and in most firms that happens by email, often through a case management system that sits on Microsoft 365.
If that link breaks, a completion can slip even when the funds are ready. The Law Society's Standard Conditions of Sale, which most residential contracts in England and Wales use, set 2pm as the completion deadline, and money that lands later is treated as arriving the next working day. Many contracts set an earlier time still, so that a whole chain can complete on the same day. A slow morning on a Friday can therefore push a completion, and the late-completion interest that goes with it, into Monday. In a chain, one late completion can hold up everyone above it.
The UK has had a taste of this kind of tech problem before. In November 2023, a cyber attack on legal IT provider CTS left around 80 conveyancing firms unable to complete, and some home movers had removal vans booked and nowhere to go. That was a far more serious failure than an email outage, because firms lost access to their case files and accounts systems. But it showed how quickly a technology problem turns into stranded buyers when transactions are lined up for a fixed day.
New Zealand, which hit this week's outage in the middle of its working day, gives a fresher example. The New Zealand Law Society said the failure was disrupting property settlements across the country, stopping firms issuing undertakings and receiving bank drawdown information, and urged lawyers to phone the firm on the other side of each deal to agree a workaround.
UK firms have been luckier as they got the benefit of timing. The outage started after most offices had closed on Thursday, which left IT teams the night to switch to backups before Friday's completions. Those whose case management and email both depend on Microsoft may still have had a slow start.
Read next: Conveyancing delays push average UK home transaction to 170 days
A gift for Friday afternoon fraudsters
The delay is the smaller worry. The bigger one is what fraudsters do with the confusion.
Friday afternoon fraud, where criminals hijack or imitate emails in a property deal and swap in their own bank details just before money moves, relies on buyers and firms acting fast without checking. An outage hands them a ready-made cover story. When a solicitor's usual email isn't working, a message from a new address saying "our systems are down, please use these details instead" looks perfectly believable. So does a call from someone claiming to be from Microsoft or the firm's IT team offering to fix a laptop.
Banks in Australia warned customers on Friday to expect exactly that kind of fake tech-support approach, and MPA's sister title Insurance Business has warned that the same tactics are likely to reach UK businesses. New Zealand's Law Society, while suggesting lawyers use stopgaps such as alternative email addresses, messaging apps and text, also told them to confirm any new contact details by ringing a number they already knew and not to skip their usual checks before releasing funds.
The stakes are high because property payments are large. UK Finance's Annual Fraud Report 2026 put losses to authorised push payment fraud, where victims are tricked into sending money themselves, at £576.4m in 2025, up 19% on the year. Homebuyers who fall victim can claim reimbursement from their bank, but mandatory reimbursement is capped at £85,000 per claim, and a lost deposit can easily be larger than that.
The risk doesn't end when Microsoft declares the incident over. Criminals who have spent the day gathering names, deals and completion dates can keep using the outage as an excuse for days afterwards.
Read next: Conveyancing scam cases rising – Lloyds
What it means for house sales and mortgage offers
For most buyers, a one-day email outage is likely to mean a nervous morning rather than a lost house. A completion that slips from Friday to Monday usually costs some late-completion interest, a rebooked removal van and a weekend in limbo. Where things drag on, the standard conditions let the side that is ready serve a notice to complete, which makes time of the essence and gives the other party 10 working days to complete before the contract can be rescinded. That is a long way from where this outage is likely to end up.
Mortgage offers are unlikely to be affected directly. Most run for several months, and a delay of a day or two shouldn't threaten one unless it was already about to expire. Brokers with clients close to an offer or product expiry date may still want to check with the lender, especially if the lender's own communications run on Microsoft.
The longer-term effect may be on confidence. Transactions already take months, and around one in three property sales fail to reach completion each year, according to government figures cited by MPA. Another hold-up on completion day won't help an industry that has been arguing for faster, more digital conveyancing, and it raises a fair question about how much of that digital process runs through a single provider.
Read next: Conveyancing delays are putting Christmas completions at risk
What brokers can tell clients now
The most useful message is the simplest one: don't send money because of an email, however genuine it looks. Clients due to complete should treat any message about changed bank details, new contact addresses or "temporary" payment arrangements as suspect until they have confirmed it by phoning their conveyancer on a number they already have, not one in the message. The same goes for anyone who calls offering to fix a Microsoft problem on their laptop or phone.
Brokers can also keep clients informed by phone if email is patchy, tell them early if a lender's systems are slowing things down, and make sure everyone in the chain knows who to call. Firms whose case management, email and video calls all sit with one provider may want to look at what they'd switch to next time, and practise it.
Read next: Microsoft outage gives brokers a taste of old-school broking
Anyone who thinks they've been targeted should contact their bank straight away and report it to Report Fraud on 0300 123 2040 in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, or to Police Scotland on 101.
This story may be updated as Microsoft releases more details on the cause and duration of the outage.
