Project 28, a property sector working group aiming for a 28-day exchange target on residential transactions, marked its first anniversary last week with a gathering of industry leaders and a panel discussion between the conveyancers, lenders and tech companies driving the change.
The event saw property professionals and representatives from government and media gather at a London venue to discuss the changes being implemented across the sector that aim to create faster, more certain property transactions.
A panel moderated by Financial Times consumer editor Claer Barrett and featuring Derek Burt, director of home operations at Lloyds Banking Group, Ben Davidson, managing director at AConveyancing, Verona Frankish, CEO of Yopa, and Travis Scholes, chief commercial officer at LMS, discussed three central themes: what upfront information means in practice, how bringing information forward can allow the transaction to be re-sequenced, and what effective collaboration looks like between lenders, conveyancers, estate agents and technology providers.
Davidson told the panel: “The way that conveyancing is conducted currently needs a radical overhaul, we now have immediate access to data, which can be instantly assessed allowing us to conduct legal due diligence early.
“As a conveyancing firm it allows us to measure the risk and complexity to bespoke the conveyancing process and further remove delay by ensuring the property is legally ready to be sold.”
The panel also explored how bringing the relevant property data, legal information, identity and source-of-funds checks, lender requirements and risk indicators forward could help identify issues sooner and enable more activity to happen in parallel.
“We have an incredible opportunity to simplify the home buying and selling journey, making it easier, faster and better for customers”, Burt said. “By bringing technology and innovation to the process, we can take the friction out of one of life’s biggest transaction”
At its launch last year, Project 28 set out eight industry commitments designed to improve efficiency, transparency and trust: early instruction of seller-side conveyancer, provision of relevant upfront information and condition reports, ensuring data collection and availability, ensuring trusted data, access to a secure and interoperable data repository, early commissioning of leasehold packs, a recognisable mark to indicate best practice, and a quality fee for quality service.
The charter was developed by a cross-sector working group representing conveyancers, estate agents, data providers and technology platforms.
