Fewer restrictions on access to home owner’s data would encourage them to take greater ownership of their data and put them in control of their property says the regulatory body for property logbooks.
Off the back of HMLR’s consultation on fees, the Residential Logbook Association (RLBA) has called for home owners to be given free, digital access to their own home’s information.
“HMLR are one of the few public bodies that actually charge citizens to view their own data. This doesn’t happen with the DVLA, the EPC register or countless other data providers.”
says Nigel Walley, Chair of RLBA.
“At a time when we are encouraging homeowners to check their upfront information is correct before selling it seems iniquitous that they have to put their credit card into the Land Registry website and be charged £3 just to check their name is spelt correctly. This is massively off-putting to most consumers, which means it doesn’t happen. This leaves the Conveyancing Community to pick up any problems that might be hidden there.”
The Residential Logbook Association (RLBA) is a trade association for logbook companies, championing the use of property logbooks to manage the changing landscape of property data. It points to the disparity between access for professionals and home owners, citing examples like ‘Search/Enquiry by Property Description’ function and the ‘Register of Proprietor Names (RPN) which can both be accessed without the conveyancer being charged a fee; neither of which are available to homeowners.
It also suggests application status notifications, currently available to conveyancers, could be made available to the homeowner as live data directly into a property logbook. In a recent opinion piece featured on Today’s Conveyancer, the RLBA made the case that all public data providers should accept that homeowners will increasingly want to access data using software.
Allaying concerns around verification and validation, the Property Logbook Register provides a base for validating the identity and ownership credentials for any logbook looking to connect to HMLR to access data according to Simon Lumb of the RLBA.
“The Logbook Register is intended for exactly this purpose, to enable systems like HMLR to validate the ID of a homeowner via their logbook”
Importantly, say the RLBA, none of this would impact HMLR revenue as the proposed model would still require payment for the official docs that need to be downloaded.
“The experience of the DVLA and Passport Office shows that opening up their data to private sector innovation has dramatically increased the amount of citizen interaction with the data, increased the number of innovative services that are built using the data, and reduced cost for the agency involved.”
says Lumb, adding this would be in line with HMLR’s plans outlined by Deputy Chief Executive and Director of Customer and Strategy Mike Harlow in a podcast recorded for National Conveyancing Week, to roll out “direct access to ‘citizens’ to be able to directly track the progress of their own applications;” something the RLBA claim its members could enact today.
The consumer home moving website HomeOwners Alliance has come out in support of the call to broaden access to home data. CEO Paula Higgins says
“Homeowners should have the right to access their own data and for free, and to encourage innovation to bring the homebuying and selling process into the 21st century.”
adding
“With one in three transactions falling though, and on average successful purchases and sales taking anywhere from 20-30 weeks, I cannot think of another sector where we seem to be going backwards in terms of delivering a service.”
