Conveyancing: Digital identity checks on the cards

The inconvenience―and impossibility during the COVID-19 pandemic―of manually verifying a client’s identity led the Land Registry, along with professional bodies, to investigate the possibility for reform last year. It proposed creating a ‘safe harbour’ where identity checks would be completed to a specified standard in return for the Land Registry agreeing not to seek recourse against the conveyancer if the identity turned out to be false. Its consultation closed in December.

Setting out its view this week, the Law Society said it was ‘broadly in favour of the proposals introduced by the safe harbour standard’, which would mean the conveyancer providing an individual certificate to the Land Registry as assurance they have followed the correct process rather than a signature.