HM Land Registry launches vision for world-leading digital property market
HM Land Registry (HMLR) has set out a vision for transforming the property market, acknowledging “the current home-buying process does not meet some basic expectations for a modern, professional service”.
Supported by CILEX and other professional bodies including the Law Society and the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, HMLR has committed to harnessing the power of digital tools and automation to speed up the home-buying process, cutting delays for home-buyers and delivering a more user-friendly service.
What it calls ‘Strategy 2022+, Enabling a world-leading property market’, launched in August, outlined how the organisation would take on a “convening role”, inviting the UK property sector to “work in partnership to create a simpler, paperless and transparent process for buying and selling property which will benefit home-owners across the country”.
Under the strategy, many more land registration processes are set to be automated, with most changes to the land register automated by 2025. This will result in “the end-to-end automation of up to 70% of all updates to the register, while maintaining the accurate and fraud-free registers that provide trust and confidence in the property market”.
Digitisation would allow people to access HM Land Registry’s information on ownership, location, mortgages and local land charges “in real time”. The agency hoped to work with the property industry to enable property to be bought and sold digitally, encouraging the market to adopt new technology – such as digital ID and e-signatures – by “introducing new standards and working with property partners to create an open, integrated ecosystem of digital services that support property transactions”.
Strategy 2022+ also set out HMLR’s commitment to opening up property data so that it is more transparent, easier to use and supports a strong, sustainable economy as well as the UK’s net-zero targets.
Simon Hayes, HMLR’s chief executive and the Chief Land Registrar, said: “Strategy 2022+ comes at a pivotal moment. The very high level of activity in the property market in recent times has underlined the urgency with which all players in the market need to work together to improve the system.
“With property transactions taking record time to complete, it is imperative that we work as partners to innovate and remove friction so that the process is as quick and painless as possible. For HM Land Registry, that means a step-change in our offering to customers so that they receive an outstanding, fully digital service.”