Pennycook: Streamlining a cumbersome process
The government yesterday pledged to bring the home-buying process “into the digital age” by opening up property information so it can be shared between all those involved in a transaction.
It will also “drive forward plans for digital identity services” as part of the bid to reduce transaction times.
“By making information available at people’s fingertips, it will be far less likely for surprises to be encountered later on in the process,” a statement from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) said.
“This will make it easier for people to get onto the housing ladder, reduce the requirement to share ID in-person in the long-term, and decrease the number of transactions collapsing.”
The twin-track reforms will be to fully digitise key information – such as building control and highways information – that remains predominantly paper-based or recorded in non-machine-readable formats, and to introduce protocols for accessing, sharing and verifying data.
“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 MHCLG said.
Working with the Digital Property Market Steering Group (DPMSG), there is to be a 12-week project to identify the design and implementation of agreed rules on data for the sector, while HM Land Registry will 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.
Meanwhile, the government will be working on plans for digital identity verification services, including in the property sector.
Housing and planning minister Matthew Pennycook said: “We are streamlining the cumbersome home buying process so that it is fit for the 21st century, helping homebuyers save money, gain time and reduce stress while also cutting the number of house sales that fall through.”
The MHCLG will also today lay secondary legislation for the right to manage measures in the Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act 2024, ahead of the schedule the government committed to last year.
One of the changes will remove the requirement for leaseholders to cover the legal fees of their freeholder when making a right to manage claim.
As has become common when talking about home-buying reform, the MHCLG cited following the example of Norway, where transactions complete in around one month.
At the launch of the DPMSG in September 2023, Hannah Cook, director of cadastre and land registration at the Norwegian Mapping Authority – its equivalent of the Land Registry – explained how all public, legal and financial documentation had to be provided upfront, along with a survey and valuation.
This could take up to a month to collate but, with Norway’s system of binding offers, transactions could then take place in a matter of days.
Norway is not directly analogous to England and Wales, as ‘real estate agents’ there handle both estate agency and conveyancing, and buyers do not generally use a lawyer. Further, digital signatures and IDs were already in place when the system came into effect in 2019.
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