The government has announced plans to digitise residential property sales, with the aim of speeding up transactions and reducing fall-throughs.
Under the proposals, it would become easier for key parties like conveyancers and mortgage lenders to access and verify data – streamlining the process for everyone involved.
Identity checks would also be carried out just once in the transaction and the results shared between parties as needed.
The objective, according to housing minister Matthew Pennycook, is “streamlining the cumbersome home buying process so that it is fit for the twenty-first century, helping homebuyers save money, gain time and reduce stress while also cutting the number of house sales that fall through”.
At present the average transaction takes almost five months to complete, and 300,000 sales fall through every year – about 1 in every 3 transactions. Getting either of those numbers down would be welcomed by many.
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Some in the industry are very supportive – like The Conveyancing Association, who say that the proposals will also have downstream benefits for remortgaging, planning applications and lettings. Other influential organisations such as Propertymark and Rightmove also back the plans.
But others warn that digitisation will not end the delays, and could have unintended consequences. Simon Law, chairman of the Society of Licensed Conveyancers, says that his organisation welcomed the plans but doesn’t believe they will solve the issue alone – and added that they would resist any changes.
And Stephen Larcombe, chair of the Property Lawyers Alliance, says that the plan doesn’t address many of the factors causing delays, such as lengthy anti-money laundering checks, limited Land Registry capacity, and complex Stamp Duty rules. He also warns that a new digital process could become a target for cybercriminals.
When will the homebuying process be digitised?
Politicians want to move ahead with the digitisation process quickly. As it builds on preexisting work done by HM Land Registry and the Home Buying and Selling Group, they already have a head start.
The first step will be a 12-week project to design and implement data-sharing rules. After that, they want to hold 10-month pilot schemes with some local councils. Changes could then be rolled out nationally – at which point we will find out fairly quickly what impact they will have.
