Agents are being invited to take part in a pilot of buyer and seller property information (BASPI) packs that would aim to speed up transactions.
The Home Buying and Selling Group (HBSG) has been working on a digitised form that agents could send for vendors to complete before marketing a property.
It would contain all the relevant property information, and the idea would be for it to be included on portal listings and sent with a memorandum of sale.
The form would also be accessible to lenders and valuers to help reduce queries, and conveyancers could match information with their own searches.
Beth Rudolph, chair of the HBSG, said industry bodies such as the Council of Licensed Conveyancers (CLC), Law Society, RICS and NAEA Propertymark are supportive of the idea.
Speaking at yesterday’s CLC annual conference, Rudolph said: “We are going to pilot it and are hoping to have 500 transactions through large estate agents to establish the impact on the chain.”
She added that the group had originally said “Let’s get Home Information Packs back” but realised this would not be acceptable.
She said: “We have tried to produce something that can be done for free and encourage people to add more information.”
NAEA Propertymark has concurrently been triallling its own property information questionnaire and point of sale protocol that can be completed online at the point of instruction.
Simon Wilkinson, from NAEA Propertymark, said 200 properties have been put through this system and it has reduced completion times from an average of 13 weeks to eight.
Comments (7)
More paper, more paper, well in digitised form. For me less paper, far less operations within the conveyancing process, machines moving data 24/7 rather than people sitting on pieces of paper for weeks, digital street initiative at Land Registry coming to fruition and digital passports on all property, which have stored in them every element of the property – the planning, the construction the component parts of the property, and as it is changed, extended etc, all these changes are digitally recorded in a sealed digital filing cabinet. All the legals will be in the passport too. Start with the new builds and roll it out to all property, within 10 years a vast swathe of property will be a digital imprint, which at point of sale will be easy to plug into the property industry matrix. The buyer will know exactly what they are buying as will all other stakeholders, lenders, solicitors etc. Speed of transaction will finally mean something. Is this a Utopian dream, well if you met some of the bright young people I meet writing complex mathematical equations on whiteboards and the coders who are quietly solving small problems one by one, you will be surprised how soon all of this is going to be a waking reality.
That’s called Blockchain right! 10 years you are right, at least. Land Reg are well behind with digital street due to only 6 local authorities on boarded for digitised searches after 2 years. The main problem is conveyancers not wanting to take any risk. Decades before this gets sorted. Don’t try and change everything at once, it is too big. Start with the easy wins, buyers want more info upfront and sellers, once they understand the value of transparency, will follow as long as no upfront costs.
Aha just the sort of offensive nonsense which tends to be written by techheads who have never practiced conveyancing for even one day and have zero idea of the intricacies required to do the job properly and efficiently. Oh yes, technology that is the answer.
Hilarious, nobody has yet PROVED to me why turning the process over to machines is going to improve the system overnight. Lots of firms use technology now and all they tend to be is very bad conveyancers with technology. I challenge you to name me one firm using the best technology available now which is actually professional, efficient and competent and not a total nightmare to have on the other side of a transaction and a disgrace to the profession.
If you can I will eat my hat, but I am not sat here wasting time seasoning the meal!
Have the Agents really press the seller to get their lawyer ready at the point of marketing – we certainly don’t charge a penny if the seller then changes their mind – so when the Memo is issued, the lawyer does not wait the usual 2-3 weeks before sending anything out (even a 30 second plan from the Land Registry website for £3)
But you need a conveyancing firm who cares to offer that.
We cannot get enough of estate agents instructing us to do that.
Care is the crux of it.
Conveyancers have been hostile to this idea for decades, they are the ones that need to be convinced and local government/utilities departments having the information readily available. I don’t think there is a single agents who does not want the system improved ….. but improved!
How much does it cost? Who is going to pay? Who is doing the work? Another free workload forced onto agents?
Great idea but waste of time. Vendors wont engage and conveyancing solicitors will hate it because they will fee threatened.
Agreed! And HIP is much easier to say than BASPI…