Buyers would make a legal commitment when they offered on a property while a secure online portal would hold information on behalf of all parties involved, under the Conveyancing Association’s vision for the future.
In a white paper published this week, Modernising the Home Moving Process, the Association highlights the benefit of greater certainty earlier in the home moving process. It suggests this can be achieved by centralising the identity verification of the parties to reduce the risk of fraud and money laundering, collating the property information and title information on the marketing of a property, and requiring a legal commitment on offer to reduce transaction failures.
It proposes requiring completion monies to be sent through the day before completion, amending the Commonhold & Leasehold Reform Act 2002 to reduce delays in the leasehold sales process, and providing a reliable lending decision-in-principle based on a “hard” credit report without impacting on the applicant’s credit score.
A secure online portal would hold all communications between the parties and their agents, protecting them from potential fraud and enabling parties to update and amend information quickly.
Eddie Goldsmith, the Association’s Chairman and partner at Goldsmith Williams, said conveyancing times between offer and completion have steadily increased from eight weeks to 13 weeks, and even longer for leasehold transactions.
“We freely admit there is a huge ambition to much of the white paper, particularly around the need for greater digitisation and a joined-up technology hub through which all aspects of the process are accessed,” he said.
“However, there are also a number of potential ‘quick win’ solutions identified within the paper which, with the right head wind, could be achieved.”
Peter Ambrose, director of property solicitors The Partnership, said: “Most of the white paper’s recommendations are entirely feasible.
“In fact, we have already adopted many of them through centralised data provision.”
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