The Legal Suppliers Software Association (LSSA) has thrown its weight behind efforts to reform the home buying and selling process in a meeting with the Ministry of Housing.
The LSSA said it had met with a strategy adviser in the Ministry to discuss proposed reforms to the home buying and home selling process and the organisation is optimistic for change.
Kevin Horlock (pictured right), CEO of the industry body for legal systems developers and vendors, said there is more “energy and passion to fix the broken property market than there has been in the past 25 years”.
He added:
“There’s multi-stakeholder engagement through the Open Property Data Association (OPDA) – and the LSSA has a memorandum of understanding with them – and the government’s smart data scheme, which is creating momentum. This is no longer just a technology problem, because trust frameworks and data standards are evolving.”
Horlock pointed to the range of stakeholders engaged across the ecosystem of property transactions, not just in one sector, as evidence the current reform programme may succeed. Technology is far more mature than it was 20 years ago, with 60% of code now generated by AI agents, he added.
Tim Kidd, CEO of the Institute of Legal Finance and Management (ILFM), made clear that it will be ILFM members in law firms who will need to implement the changes, and said their input to the proposals will be important.
The LSSA emphasised the reforms constitute a “catch-up” rather than innovation, noting that the process is 10 years behind the DVLA and Passport Office on digital data exchange.
Members support the move towards earlier binding contracts and upfront information, the LSSA said, with importance placed on trust in the provenance of data and not a centralisation of that data.
