How digitisation is changing the future of home-buying
By Jonny Davey, Product Manager at Geodesys
Data in the 21st century has been described as the oil of the 18th century – an incredibly valuable resource with potential for immense rewards for those who learn how to extract and use it[1]. Living in a connected, digital economy means that we are increasingly reliant on data in order to function and evolve, so businesses and consumers alike have a part to play in shaping the role of digital information in our society.
The commercial value of data has already been recognised by the automotive industry, where mobile phone signals and GPS positioning have been used to reveal important information about driver behaviours. Monitoring of parking locations, destinations, mileage and speed, even the frequency of sudden braking feeds huge back-end systems that collate that data and package it to be resold.
While that data can ostensibly help by keeping costs down for careful drivers, it remains to be seen whether it’s good news for all from a financial perspective. Where it should benefit everyone is in speeding up the insurance claims process for those involved in a road incident.
Similarly, house-buying is ripe with data and there is always appetite to streamline the process. Current estimates indicate that half of all UK house sales fall through before completion[2], so there is a clear need to improve the home-buying process and make the data that we have work for rather than against us.
Information collected along the way includes personal data about buyers and sellers as well as surveyor reports, significant property improvements and environmental data. While these records are useful, managing the sheer volume of repetitive data associated with the house-buying process is often cited as a major cause of delay in transactions going through and even leading to ultimate failure.
Stakeholders from all quarters are keen to improve the process, and HM Land Registry is leading the charge with a wholesale review launched in 2017 to make home-buying simpler, faster and cheaper.
Local Authority data is often considered as one of the most troublesome areas, with searches into planning permissions, conservation areas, TPOs, smoke control zone conditions or light obstruction notice conditions taking weeks if not months to be returned. It has therefore been prioritised for digitisation with a pilot scheme being launched across five Local Authorities as a first wave in 2018. The plan is that this will be rolled out across all Local Authorities in time.
The digital Local Land Charges Registry scheme aims to provide 24/7 access to data, which is free to view or access for reference. As with the automotive industry, there is scope for monetisation, such as the £15 fee already in place for official copies that can be saved, printed, and re-run for six months, a service that is particularly useful when checking whether any information has changed following a delayed or drawn-out transaction.
The scheme has been universally acclaimed by those that are already participating and is due to roll out across a further 18 Local Authorities over the next 18 months. It’s hoped that all 326 Local Authorities within England will be offering digital LLC within 5 – 7 years.
The Land Registry’s initiative is a great showcase for the power of data and how it can be used to streamline processes, so how can we expand this across other areas of the market?
Could we imagine a future when holders of flood data, contaminated land data, or drainage and water information make these details accessible through an online portal, attributed to every registered address and summarised instantly for potential buyers (and their legal representatives) at the touch of a button and for a set fee?
In other words, each property would come complete with its own set of data at the point of being offered for sale. Sound familiar? It’s not entirely different to the abandoned Home Information Packs of the mid-noughties, in fact. With the advances in digital technology and data management since then, perhaps it’s time to revisit the concept.
[1] https://www.wired.com/insights/2014/07/data-new-oil-digital-economy/
Kindly shared by Geodesys
