The Open Property Data Association (OPDA) has signed Memorandums of Understanding (MoU) with the Legal Software Suppliers Association (LSSA) and The Conveyancing Association to promote closer collaboration and knowledge-sharing across the property sector.
The MoU sets out shared commitments to advance the digital transformation of the home buying and selling process encourage the use of open data standards, improve interoperability between systems and support the delivery of more transparent, efficient and consumer-friendly property transactions.
The LSSA – the UK industry body for developers and vendors of legal software systems – advocates for the regulated sharing of open data as part of its broader strategy to enhance the efficiency and accuracy of legal processes in the UK. By promoting open data, the LSSA seeks to improve the quality of legal data and to facilitate better decision-making within the legal profession.
The Conveyancing Association is already working with OPDA on the development of the smart property data trust framework, which is designed to streamline the home buying and selling process and enhance trust standards.
Both organisations have been key advocates for innovation and reform within the sector.
“The LSSA and Conveyancing Association represent vital parts of the property eco-system, and are united in the belief that trusted, interoperable and open data sharing is the future of the housing market,” OPDA chair Maria Harris said.
“As we continue to expand our membership, we’re creating a momentum for change in the property industry that will transform the way we buy and sell homes in the UK.”
Beth Rudolf, director of delivery at the Conveyancing Association, said:
“At the heart of our mission is a drive to improve the home buying and selling process – to reduce delay, cut waste and place quality, reliable information at the start of the process. Working alongside the OPDA and its members we can help build the data trust framework to deliver a property market that is quicker, safer, and far less draining for both firms and their clients.”
“The home-buying system is still designed around traditional thinking and outdated models, and we need to break down some of the cultural resistance to change with the legal sector,” LSSA chief executive Kevin Horlock added.
“Firms that prepare their data, modernise their systems and embrace the expectations of today’s clients will take a lead in the market. The OPDA is creating the trust framework that will allow this to happen, through the sharing of open data, and we’re eager to support them deliver this change.”
The MoU is part of the OPDA’s broader mission to support cross-industry co-operation, bringing together stakeholders from across estate agency, conveyancing, surveying, lending and technology to build an open, trusted framework for property data.
4 responses
The announcement that the Open Property Data Association (OPDA) has signed Memorandums of Understanding with both the Legal Software Suppliers Association and the Conveyancing Association is, at the very least, a moment that deserves careful reflection from practising property lawyers.
Collaboration across the sector is valuable. But collaboration also carries responsibilities—particularly when it touches on professional independence, evidential standards, and the handling of sensitive client information at a time when cybercrime is at unprecedented levels.
Several questions now arise that deserve clear, unambiguous answers:
• OPDA has repeatedly promoted to MPs and others the curious claim that conveyancing involves “300 steps” or “300 documents”. Property lawyers know that such statements risk mischaracterising the nature of our work and oversimplifying the professional judgment that underpins each transaction. Before any formal partnership is endorsed, should we not understand the evidential basis for such claims?
• Why should regulated lawyers be mandated to expose client data to open digital highways during a cybercrime pandemic? The profession carries statutory duties of confidentiality, AML responsibility, and evidential accountability. Any proposal that increases exposure of client information must be justified with more than optimism about technology. It requires rigorous scrutiny and genuine practitioner consent.
• Most importantly, were lawyer members of the Conveyancing Association consulted before their Association entered into this MoU? An MoU of this nature has implications for professional independence, regulatory exposure, and the future architecture of conveyancing practice. It is reasonable to ask whether the lawyers whose reputations and responsibilities are most directly affected were given the opportunity to express a view.
None of these questions are meant to be hostile. They are simply the questions any responsible profession must ask when external bodies seek to shape its future.
As the Conveyancing Task Force and the Property Lawyers Alliance have consistently argued, the profession’s duty is to the public, to the integrity of the legal process, and to the evidential standards that underpin trust in property transactions.
Quiet, principled scrutiny is not resistance to progress. It is the foundation of safe, sustainable reform.
The Conveyancing Association ought to be ashamed of themselves. They are not lawyers. They should be re-named the Conveyancing “Tech” Association. Priorities in completely the wrong place and being led by donkeys. How about standing up for conveyancers being forced to register with HMRC as tax advisors? Data is not the cause of delays – inadequately trained conveyancers and Conveyancing Factory Association tick box “yes people” are the problem with referral fees being paid to agents for work. How can you trust their non-practising leader who rocks up to Parliament trying to convince MPs that ‘referral fees’ are a good things?
Data can be incorrect and corrupt. Data is not evidence and it can be fabricated (as we have seen with falsified EWS1s and building regulations certificates).
Wake up conveyancers – if you are a member of this organisation, I suggest you cancel your membership with immediate effect. They do not represent Conveyancers and their conference was a tech brain washing session (I heard also the fees to attend such session was astronomical.)
Stop the gaslighting. It doesn’t make you look good.
I agree with Anonymous Cat. What on earth has the unfortunately named Conveyancing Association got to do with actual Conveyancers? Most competent Conveyancers certainly do not wish to be associated with them and what they stand for. It is actually quite disheartening to see how much of their incorrect and ill-informed rhetoric now pervades this once great profession. When will Beth Rudolph stop pretending to know what she is talking about, especially when she has been nowhere near a conveyancing file for decades? The foundational arguments are wrong and therefore the solutions they are suggesting are also wrong. The wrong solutions to the wrong problems by the wrong people! You could not make this up! Will the real Conveyancers please step forward because the vacum of our silence is being filled with literally hot air!
Sometimes I watch a reel or read an article and at the end I realise I’ve been hoodwinked and it was an advert all along. Has that happened here? Is this an ad-article for proptech? Are you mugging me (us) off? Are they paying you?