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Proposals to modernise the home-moving process

Beth Rudolf

Author Beth Rudolf explains the Conveyancing Association’s (CA) proposals for a more certain and transparent conveyancing process.

The CA’s white paper, Modernising the home moving process, sets out the results of the association’s research and consultations with conveyancing stakeholders across the industry, in the UK and abroad, to identify the constraints in the home-moving process and the solutions employed in other jurisdictions as well as the CA’s own vision of how a future technology supported process could operate.*

Our aims with the white paper have been quite simple: to understand the problems and obstacles with the current process; and, by learning from other jurisdictions, to propose solutions based on those learnings and the ideas proposed by our members and other contributors. We also used the paper to postulate what the future might hold in terms of our vision of a data-sharing, collaborative, digital home-moving service: one which would be a positive experience for consumers; one unblighted by unnecessary delays; and one deemed to be value for money.

In doing this, we did not want to be constrained by the current process in terms of how we would like the future to look. We fully accept that there was an element of blue-sky thinking contained within the paper, and that existing practitioners might think that some of our suggestions and ambitions were ‘pie in the sky’. However, we (as an industry) should not lose sight of the fact that, 20 years ago, no one would have thought that, in 2017, routine communication with clients would be via e-mail. And it is through improved and ever-changing technology that we believe that we have the chance of ensuring a much better home-moving process.

The underlying problems of the current process

So, to start at the beginning, what does the white paper believe the underlying problems of the process to be? We set these out as follows:

Identifying the key problems

The white paper sought to identify the key problems within the home-moving process (which is taken to include the tasks surrounding and within the legal process of transferring title) by, first, researching other jurisdictions. We wanted to look at those which were perceived to do it well, and, therefore, spoke to property practitioners and undertook web research on Scotland, the USA, Australia and Denmark. In particular, we wanted to look at both the similarities and differences between the systems run in these countries and what we have here in England and Wales. This research drew out a number of conclusions, namely:

Having done this, the white paper looks extensively at the process in England and Wales, identifying the major areas of concern, i.e., lack of transparency, lack of certainty and delay, and undertaking to ascertain the specific issues that cause these problems and the potential solutions which exist or could be created to rectify them.

So, for lack of transparency, we look at the absence of consumer information around the options available to them and the lack of consumer information per se. For lack of certainty, we look at the absence of a binding offer, the changing of move dates and last-minute exchange and completion, while for delay, we identify the main points of constraint and their contributory factors, such as anti-money laundering activities, the provision of property information to the conveyancer, the leasehold sales process, enquiries, local authority searches and mortgage instructions.

Achieving a positive home-moving experience

Undertaking a detailed look at all these areas brought forward a number of potential solutions. Our conclusions resulted in specific proposals to achieve a positive home-moving experience for all by creating certainty earlier in the process. We believe that this can be achieved by the following:

Next steps

Following the publication of the white paper, we invited industry stakeholders to debate the contents and to help us set about the next steps at our annual conference, which was held in December 2016. This very successful event has helped greatly in honing our thoughts and ideas. At the time of writing, we are currently taking stock of the conference. We were particularly pleased with the level of consensus in a number of key areas, notably, on the following:

Following on from this, at the time of writing, the CA plans to provide an update on its post-conference work and its list of actions. The hard work will then begin on implementing these actions and securing a home-moving process which works for all. This is a group effort and will only be effective with the industry standing shoulder to shoulder in their efforts to improve.

We thank those that have aided us in getting this far. We continue to enjoy a close working relationship with CILEx [1] (as well as other industry stakeholders) and would thank CILEx council member Mike Bowen for his continued support and ideas in connection with the leasehold campaign.

* The CA’s white paper is available here [2].

To read the article in full click here [3].