A new video designed to help consumers understand smart property data and how it can improve the home buying and selling process has been launched.
The Digital Property Market Steering Group (DPMSG) has released the two-minute film and is calling on organisations across the property and financial services sectors to share it far and wide.
Made with consumers in mind, the video aims to explain how sharing property information securely could make moving home easier and less stressful.
Recent research by the Open Property Data Association found around half of home moves in the UK fall through before completion, with repeated requests for the same information contributing to the frustration and delays experienced by consumers.
The video draws a comparison with open banking, explaining how smart property data will enable people to control how their property information is shared.
Stephen Ward, DPMSG member and director of strategy at the Council for Licensed Conveyancers, the regulatory sponsor of the Smart Property Data Trust Framework Pilot, said: “Smart Property Data offers the opportunity to revolutionise home moving by making it easier for the right information to be shared securely between the organisations involved, while keeping the consumer firmly in control.
“This short video is about making that idea easy to understand.
“We want people to see that this isn’t about technology for technology’s sake – it is about taking away some of the unnecessary repetition and friction from moving home to make the process simpler, faster and give home movers more certainty.
“Importantly, consumers will remain in control, including being able to see who holds their information and why.
“We’re asking organisations across the industry to help us get the video in front of as many consumers as possible, so that more people understand the benefits of Smart Property Data and what it could mean for them.”
One Response
“Open Banking for property” rests on a flawed premise
The DPMSG’s new public video presents Smart Property Data as “Open Banking for property”: simpler, faster, more certain. It is slick, but it is built on the wrong diagnosis.
The premise is that conveyancing fails because we don’t share data. When DPMSG was formed by HMLR, conveyancers were asked what actually keeps them up at night. The answers were the Building Safety Act, mission creep, HMLR delays, the AML burden, low fees, referral fees, and PII. Only a minority placed a lack of upfront information in their top five. We are still solving the wrong problem.
My second concern is mandate. We are told a long list of organisations has signed up. That is unsurprising: search companies, panel managers, portals, and software sellers all profit from easier sharing of data. But how many of the lawyer bodies asked their members first? Did the Law Society ask its conveyancers whether they want client ID, title and source of funds information shared across a Trust Framework they do not control? Did CILEX? Did the CLC, regulatory sponsor of the pilot, ask its members whether they want it funded from client account interest, the very money the MOJ now wants to claim most of?
It is a familiar pattern. A group forms at the top, and the result is presented as “the industry wants this”. The conveyancer buried in a full caseload on a Friday evening was never asked.
The timing also hurts credibility. In the last week alone, HMLR confirmed it blocked fraudulent applications worth millions last year, an NHS Trust suspended staff over alleged improper access to patient records, and the MOJ began recruiting an administrator to capture the client interest that helps fund fraud protection. Open Banking worked because the banks invested heavily in security and liability before the consumer video. We are doing the reverse.
I am not anti-tech. Good technology supports independent legal advice; it does not replace it. If DPMSG wants consumer trust, it should first earn professional trust and publish which of its members actually hold a mandate from frontline conveyancers to sign up at all.