Clicks and Mortar: The Future of the UK Property Industry is Paperless AND Dependent on Humans

With an acute spike in the emergence of proptech disrupters in the industry, coupled with a slow demise of high-street agents and widespread digitalisation across the retail, conveyancing and mortgage settlement spaces, are we ready for the clicks and mortar revolution?

In April this year, the first digital mortgage deed was signed and registered at HM Land registry, filed by an online conveyancer and Coventry Building Society. Since then, we have seen traditional estate agents such as Countrywide and Hoxtons face colossal financial setbacks. Drawing a line between the physical and digital worlds of the UK property arena is redundant; both do not sit in isolation of each other. However, drawing a line through antiquated systems, lack of transparency, manual chase ups, wet signatures and failed completions is now critical. When You Move, the proptech firm that heralds the role of the estate agent as critical to a successful digital future, lays out its five-step plan to reform the UK property arena:

Five step plan

  1. UK estate agents and conveyancers to accept and reform: The true extent of their case capacity, stream-lining of services to avoid generalist professionals attempting property law to the detriment of the customer
  2. Abolishment of paper-trail weighted wet signatures and offline records
  3. Industry measures in place for customer service KPIs POST “offer accepted”
  4. Full transparency of referral fees and preferred relationships
  5. Embrace tech partners to offer a digital customer journey, that ENHANCES the traditional estate agent service
Simon Bath, CEO of When You Move, on the need for digitalisation in the property industry:

“A consumer-focused approach is what will make the property industry future-proof. We are becoming more and more used to information being readily available to us, whether its tracking a food order or your uber – we want to be kept in the loop on exactly what is going on. This shouldn’t be any different for the most important and expensive transaction of an individual’s life. The conveyancing process, as it stands, involves hundreds of documents per transaction. These documents are not scanned and centrally available as the software to allow this is simply just not used by lawyers across the industry. Lawyers and conveyancers are therefore having to spend hours looking through all this information manually. As a result, the process is further delayed for the consumer. When You Move is providing a centralised platform for all parties involved in the buying and selling of a home, this will ensure they are not only just able to track the process, but also make the lengthy paper trails and wet signatures a thing of the past”.

 

Kindly shared by When You Move