The Residential Logbook Association (RLBA) has welcomed logbook providers HOP and Block Manager as members, taking the number of organisations in the trade association and self-regulatory body to eight, with the number of registered and compliant property logbooks standing at around half a million.
RLBA champions the potential role of residential logbooks in residential property data and is working towards the implementation of all residential property transactions being supported by a regulated logbook. The association was asked by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government and the Home Buying and Selling Council to create a self-regulatory framework to offer reassurance to the conveyancing industry that the logbooks will offer a standard data framework. The resulting system includes data standards, a compliance system and the National Register of Logbooks.
HOP (Home Owners Passport) has worked with the RLBA to evolve its systems into a full logbook, offering conveyancers, agents and lenders a single secure source for trusted digital information. Block Manager is a software as a service (SaaS) platform which acts as a central repository for property documentation in communal building management. The start-up is supported by the Geovation Accelerator Programme, which is backed by Ordnance Survey and HM Land Registry.
RLBA chair Nigel Walley commented:
“The original vision was to create a market of logbook companies offering different propositions to suit the widely varying needs of the property market. A logbook for a brand new apartment in a block is likely to have very different needs and functionality to a logbook designed for social housing, or for someone restoring a historic stand-alone house.
“The variety of offerings among RLBA members reflects this vision. Creating a self-regulatory system to support this variation has always been a key challenge.
“We now have three logbook companies – NDD, Chimni and AHMS – fully compliant to the RLBA system and signing up logbooks on the register, with three more companies now completing technical testing. This means that there are approximately half a million logbooks now compliant with the standards agreed with MHCLG and findable on the Register. HOP and Block Manager will now start this process.”
