Government backs plans to digitise homebuying
Labour has backed a new initiative to “revolutionise” homebuying by embracing technologies, with failed deals costing the economy nearly £1bn every year.
The project will see the Centre for Finance, Innovation and Technology (CFIT) work in coalition with multiple government departments, including the department for business and trade and the ministry for housing.
The initiative aims to speed up the homebuying process, cut legal fees, and allow buyers to access more data about on-the-market properties.
Liz Lloyd, digital economy minister, said: “Buying a home can be time-consuming, lengthy and stressful. Using smart data has the potential to make this quicker, more secure and more transparent for consumers when they are making the biggest, most important purchases of their lives.”
CFIT, which develops tech policy for the financial sector, will lead the Open Property Coalition to produce a roadmap for unveiling a smart data scheme for homebuying.
Homebuying takes 22 weeks on average in English and Wales, and 30 per cent of transactions fall through, CFIT said.
This equates to 530,000 failed housing transactions every year, which costs the economy £950mn annually, according to a Santander report.
Only one per cent of the data needed to buy a home is available digitally, meaning delays, errors and fraud are common, according to the Open Property Data Association (OPDA).
The project could use Digital ID to streamline transactions by creating a unique digital identifier of every property.
The coalition’s use of tech could also provide reliable estimated completion times for purchases, an end to “gazumping and gazundering”, lower legal fees and improved mortgage underwriting.
Terry Robertson, deputy director of strategy at the Land Registry, said: “Digitising the home buying and selling process will bring huge benefits to everyone involved in the property sector. This transformation depends on collaboration.”
Leon Ifayemi, director of coalitions and research at CFIT, said: “Many of us have personally experienced how buying a home in England or Wales can be slow, opaque, costly and aggravating.
“But if we are going to successfully use technology to solve these pain points, we need policymakers, regulators and industry all to be pulling in the exact same direction.”