Location data could significantly improve the home buying process

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May 18, 2023

Location data could significantly improve the home buying process

‘Building Better Decision Making – Location data in the property sector’ is not the most catchy of titles but the 1st August publication of a report by the Geospatial Commission [GC] contains

‘Building Better Decision Making – Location data in the property sector’ is not the most catchy of titles but the 1st August publication of a report by the Geospatial Commission [GC] contains interesting information for residential estate agency and suggests that better use of data will improve the conveyancing process. We in the industry are going to be hearing a lot more on this subject in the future.

In her introduction, GC Commissioner, Alexandra Notray says,

“The property ecosystem provides the infrastructure of where we live, work and play. It is a cornerstone of the UK economy, employing 1.2 million people and contributing over £100 billion each year.

“However, many of our interactions with the industry from planning to buying, renting and maintenance, remain stubbornly analogue. We can all see the transformative potential and multitude of opportunities for the property industry to embrace emerging technologies and digital tools empowered by location data; yet a truly systematic approach to innovation and technology across our diverse and siloed asset classes and property types has yet to emerge. Often this is blamed on the barriers, perceived or real, of how to securely hold, analyse, share and manage data that put off property companies from adopting change.

“This report can be a catalyst for enabling that change. The UK is already home to a fast growing and innovative PropTech sector, transforming how developers find land and evaluate development potential, how local authorities and residents approach planning, how homes are bought, sold or rented, and how customers interact with their landlords and wider communities.”

For the buying, selling and renting of residential properties the report says that location data could lead faster, more certain transactions.

“The average length of time for a conveyancing process is 150 days. In England and Wales, the Conveyancing Association states that there are 163 different data sets required for review as part of residential transactions, most related to the property and any restrictions and risks.

“In last year’s Levelling Up White Paper the government committed to improve the home buying and selling process, working with industry to ensure the critical information buyers need to know is available digitally wherever possible from trusted and authenticated sources.

“The conveyancing process could be significantly improved by FAIR [findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable] location data resulting in greater transparency, quicker transaction and reduction in expensive late in process failures, as well as reducing local authority burdens.

“Greater availability of high quality interoperable data earlier on would enable buying process decisions to be taken at an earlier point, for both professionals (e.g. conveyancers and lenders) and consumers (e.g. buyers and sellers). This could lead to fewer failed transactions at a late stage, saving money, time and stress.”

The report identifies opportunity areas within residential conveyancing and notes that local authority searches can currently take up to 40 working days. HM Land Registry is working in partnership with local authorities in England and Wales to standardise and migrate the Local Land Charges Register information to one national register.

HM Land Registry has set out a programme of transformation to provide secure and efficient land registration, enable property to be bought and sold digitally, provide near real-time property information, provide accessible digital register data and lead research and accelerate change with property market partners. This work sits alongside that of DLUHC who committed in last year’s Levelling Up White Paper to ensure home buyers have the critical information they need for a purchase, available digitally wherever possible.

Often the same question of the data is asked multiple times by buyers, lenders and sellers, with multiple prospective buyers independently following the same process. Additionally in other areas, multiple organisations or companies are collecting the same information e.g. on building age due to it being hard to find in one location.

The report notes that the Home Buying and Selling Group, which is made up of representatives from the property industry, have developed the ‘Buying and Selling Property Information’ (BASPI) dataset designed to be the ‘one source of truth’ when it comes to upfront information about a property.

The latest version of the BASPI includes the requirement to include a UPRN alongside the address of the property, enabling conveyancers, lenders and buyers to be confident that they are dealing with the same piece of land or property.To support the BASPI, a technology sub group is developing a Property Data Trust Framework, building upon the methodology established by the Digital Identity Trust Framework.

This Property Data Trust Framework will be a framework, data and technology standard to enable people and organisations to reuse data relating to a property, and access and share authenticated property information or “property attributes” with other people and organisations more easily.

By adopting these standards, all services and organisations using the trust framework can describe property information they’ve created in a consistent way. This will make it easier for organisations and users to complete property transactions or share information with other trust framework participants.

You can read the full report here.

For the buying, selling and renting of residential properties the report says that location data could lead faster, more certain transactions.