"We believe this is not just about its use for home buying and selling, but it will provide far greater benefits across the lifecycle of property"
- Beth Rudolf, director of delivery for The Conveyancing Association
The government has announced new plans to modernise the home buying and selling process, helping to stop property transactions from falling through.
Under the plans, the government has pledged to modernise the way the process works to bring down current delays of almost five months.
The government noted a "lack of digitalisation and join up in the sector" and, as a result, will open up key property information, ensuring the data can be shared between trusted professionals more easily.
It also wants to drive forward plans for digital identity services to reduce the requirement to share ID in-person in the long-term and decrease the number of transactions collapsing.
Currently, fall throughs – which impact one in three transactions – cost people around £400 million a year, on top of the four million working days lost by conveyancers and estate agents alone which is equivalent to £1 billion.
In a statement, the government said: "Under a fully digitalised home buying and selling process, the information key parties need – from mortgage companies to surveyors – will be within reach immediately, with the necessary identity checks carried out once."
The government has today announced a 12-week project, in collaboration with the property market and Land Registry, to identify the design and implementation of agreed rules on data for the sector, so that it can easily be shared between conveyancers, lenders and other parties involved in a transaction.
The Land Registry will also build on its work in digitising property information and lead 10-month pilots with a number of councils to identify the best approach to opening up more of their data and making it digital, whilst the government pushes ahead with plans for digital identity verification services in the property sector.
This will all be carried out in conjunction with the Digital Property Market Steering Group - a collection of industry and government experts committed to digitalising the home buying and selling process and delivering this change.
Beth Rudolf, director of delivery for The Conveyancing Association, commented: “Clearly, this announcement has the potential to be incredibly positive for those going through the home buying and selling process, helping speed it up and working to ensure we bring down the third of transactions which fall through before completion, costing money, causing stress and wasting effort and resources. We have been heavily involved in pushing forward the digital property data agenda and what greater provision can achieve. We believe this is not just about its use for home buying and selling, but it will provide far greater benefits across the lifecycle of property, enabling parties to have the right view of the property data whenever they transact or need to act, whether that is a remortgage, altering or finding a planning application, for letting purposes, or retrofitting to meet net zero targets.
“There are also some wider benefits that are often discounted but which should be generated by this, including: for the economy in terms of not having people in housing ‘stasis’ for long periods of any year meaning they can get on with their lives, be economically active and contribute to UK GDP; the environment, as it will mean the Government can see the quality of the housing stock digitally allowing it to target where its funding/grants/loans should be delivered in order to achieve retrofitting; the NHS, in terms of helping reduce the health issues often caused by people living in poor housing conditions; plus our housing sector, and the conveyancing industry in particular, as it will reduce waste and duplication of tasks which often adds significant amounts of time to the whole buying/selling process.
“What we want is a much more joined-up, digitally-enhanced process that reduces the stress of buying and moving for people by cutting down on the uncertainty, the frustrations, the wasted money, and the simple time spent waiting for all aspects to progress. We at the CA are very supportive of this announcement and will be working with the Government and all other stakeholders to make it a reality as soon as possible.”
Joe Pepper, UK CEO at PEXA, said: “For too long, our disjointed, fragmented and inefficient property transaction process has caused economic damage, and harmed consumer outcomes. This announcement is proof that the Government has identified the scale of the issue, and has begun to grasp the nettle.
“Digitisation of data will go some way to breaking down the silos and speeding up access to data required to deliver a more streamlined process. But it’s a broad spectrum, and fundamentally we need a common way of sharing that data and managing the workflow, to allow conveyancers to do their job effectively without getting caught up in red tape and being forced to move at the pace of the slowest professional in the process.
“Driving positive change in the transaction process is fundamental to the Government delivering against its ambitious homeownership targets, and we welcome this initiative as an important first step.”
Maria Harris, chair of the Open Property Data Association (OPDA), added: “This is a significant step forward in the modernisation of the home buying and selling process. The government's commitment to streamlining transactions through digital property data will help create a more efficient, transparent, and cost-effective system for all, especially consumers.
“At OPDA, we have long advocated for smart, secure, and trusted data to be at the heart of this transformation, and we welcome this recognition of its importance.
“We are grateful to our members and supporters, particularly those who have worked tirelessly to develop open data standards and demonstrate their value in practice. This progress would not have been possible without their dedication.”
