Enabling smart and trustable shared data is at the heart of government’s plans to modernise home buying and property transactions but what does this mean for consumers and the firms who represent them at every stage of the transaction?
To find out, Today’s Conveyancer speaks to the Open Property Data Association, a trade association comprising 15 industry leaders, technology innovators, and organisations committed to driving positive change. It includes mortgage lenders, property and proptech firms, conveyancers and estate agents.
This week’s announcement underlines what so many of us in the property industry already know. So much of the data we need is not readily accessible and exists in formats we simply cannot interrogate, safely share or trust. It’s not surprising that conservative estimates suggest 20-25% of a conveyancer’s time is spent collating and verifying information and data. Add to that the huge duplication of effort in authenticating ID verification, property information, financial information, AML checks, etc and the scale of the problem and need for change become evident.
We’re not starting from scratch though. Open data and technology standards underpin pretty much every digital service we access every day on our smartphones or on the internet. Even the humble 13-amp 3-pin British mains socket plug has a dependable standard and universally accepted power adapter; without which every electricity company, homebuilder, electrician and supplier of mains appliances would be vying to get you to use their special, proprietary, and different socket designs. Trust ecosystems are also widely adopted around the world, especially in open finance, healthcare, logistics, and research but the UK was the first to develop this approach when it delivered Open Banking.
Developing the same open standards and trust ecosystem approach for property will deliver the MHCLG schemes announced this week as well as supporting the wider industrial strategy, leasehold reforms, building safety standards, and achieving a better home buying experience for everyone, much needed to assist successful delivery of the 1.5 million new properties that government has also committed to build.
The first change is the Data Use & Access Bill which has completed its passage through the House of Lords and is now working its way through the House of Commons before proceeding to Royal Assent. This Bill gives consumers the right to access their data in a safe and secure digital format and to share that data with the firms who are providing services for them. It also recognises digital solutions such as upfront property packs, property logbooks, and identity wallets as assets.
Led by the Department of Science, Innovation & Technology (DSIT) this legislation is being introduced as part of the Industrial Strategy and government’s manifesto to grow the economy, improve public services, and to make lives easier for consumers. This is an important first step on the journey to making property, identity, and finance data such as mortgages smart and usable. Other use cases including NHS data, energy consumption, and net zero.
The second change is the creation of the Smart Data Council led by the Department of Business & Trade (DBT). This brings together the government departments, regulators, industry and consumer groups to drive adoption of Smart Data Schemes including property. This work will set out the common data, technology, and security standards for data to be accessed and shared by consumers and authorisation of the 3rd parties who service them – for our industry that means everyone from property pack providers and estate agent CRMs to conveyancing case management systems. Software and system providers will need to be accredited to collect, process, and share digital data on behalf of their customers.
Both of these changes are essential to enable reform and innovation in the property, finance, and energy markets. The transition from Open Banking to Open Finance will mean consumers will be able to access and share their savings, mortgage, pension and other financial data fundamentally changing how we complete mortgage applications, fraud and AML checks. Reusable digital identity for property will put customers in control of their identity data, making it safer and more secure, but will also strengthen the standard of the check with clearer correlation between the customer, their financial data, and the property being transacted on.
This week’s MHCLG announcement recognises the commitment we need from government for the smart property data use case to be realised. The initial 12-week project will identity and agree the common standards that will apply to property data and how those standards will be implemented by government and rolled out across the property industry. This will set out clear plans on how property data will be standardised in a common format at source and how we describe the attributes and provenance of that property data to make it accessible, shareable, and trustable. The digitisation of the Local Land Charges local authority data, HMLR pilots, and the Open Property Data Association trust framework schema will form part of this consultation.
At its most basic level, this means that property data will be digitised at source – eradicating paper documents, pdfs, electronic databases, and downloadable registers – these will be converted to a format that is machine readable and easily accessed using real-time APIs (Application Programming Interface i.e. how systems collect and share information). Using common data formats, a standardised data dictionary, and universal API specifications are fundamental building blocks in making property data available in a format that can be accessed in real-time, at the right time, safely sharable by customers, and processable by the industry providers who need trustable and verified data to complete their part of the process.
Smart Data Schemes rely on data being digitised at source to these common standards but also requires interoperable trust ecosystems – the governance, security, and verification of the data providers and the 3rd party providers. The commitment to deliver this through the Digital Property Market Steering Group is further reinforced by Jonathan Clifton Deputy Director, Home Ownership at MHCLG being announced as chair. Trust ecosystems embed how we verify the credentials of the source providers of the data, create the security protocols for customers to access and share their data, provenance the reliability of the data so you know it hasn’t been tampered with, and establish the liability and redress processes as data is collected and shared by accredited providers.
Implementing the Data Bill legislation, Smart Data initiatives, and establishing the protocols for property data represent major changes to how home buying and selling will work in the future. There is a lot of work to do, not least converting our analogue and electronic information to data and rolling out common trust and standards, but these changes set a new paradigm and ways of working for government and industry. This will raise standards, introduce enhanced risk and security controls, set minimum requirements for data, technology and cyber protocols, and ultimately deliver better transparency, consistency and accuracy of property data. Everything we need to deliver a better homebuying experience for customers, industry and government.
Links
- Data Use & Access Bill factsheets https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/data-use-and-access-bill-factsheets
- Data Use & Access Bill timetable https://bills.parliament.uk/bills/3825
- Angela Rayner BBC interview https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0027vz7/sunday-with-laura-kuenssberg-online-safety-middle-east-peace-and-labours-housebuilding-plans
- MHCLG and Matthew Pennycook announcement https://www.gov.uk/government/news/home-buying-and-selling-to-become-quicker-and-cheaper
4 responses
When someone runs this press release through ChatGPT ( other AIs are available) please could you let your readers know the salient points…
Peter here you go…
Summary: What Does ‘Modernising’ Home Moving Actually Look Like?
The UK government’s plan to modernise home buying focuses on digitising property data to improve efficiency, transparency, and security. A key issue is that much of the required property data is fragmented, hard to access, and manually verified, causing delays.
To address this, two major initiatives are underway:
1. The Data Use & Access Bill – This legislation will allow consumers to securely access and share their property, identity, and financial data digitally. It also formally recognises digital property packs, logbooks, and identity wallets.
2. The Smart Data Council – Led by the Department for Business & Trade, this initiative will standardise how property data is accessed, shared, and verified, ensuring all relevant software providers meet common security and technology standards.
The goal is to create an open, trust-based property data system, similar to Open Banking, where data is digital at source and can be accessed in real time via APIs. This will reduce reliance on paper documents and PDFs, streamline ID verification and fraud checks, and enable smoother property transactions.
While there’s a lot of work ahead, this shift towards a fully digital, standardised system aims to make home buying faster, safer, and more transparent for everyone.
Such a shame that the conveyancers who work on property transactions appear to being ignored on the subject of what the real barriers to a smoother property transaction might be.
Allowing technology companies, their evangelists and the Conveyancing Association to control the direction of travel, whilst the Government Department is mesmerised by the over promising of efficacy and efficiency, will lead everyone down a deep rabbit hole to the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party.
The real barriers to a smooth property transaction are being ignored because it suits Big Tech and Big Factories to ignore them.
Why have transaction timeframes extended? Not because of a lack of technology or digitisation but because of the business models adopted by big conveyancing which adversely affects consumers’ best interests. Put simply not enough qualified conveyancers actively progressing transactions from the start and an over reliance on technology and Standard Enquiries.
Will this AI be able to spot when your client is being taken advantage of? Of course not, it’s not there to give an opinion. Just re-hash what it has found on the internet.