Property transactions will be transformed by a new standard that could be implemented within two years, according to a leading law firm.
The Property Information Common Exchange Standard (Pisces) has been developed by the legal industry and defines a common format for sending and receiving information between all parties involved in the conveyancing chain. It will allow the transfer of information between offices, without the need to re-enter data manually.
Richard Barnett, senior partner at Barnetts Solicitors, said: “The standard will help to achieve more comprehensive data flow between organisations. It will not only save costs and delays in manual data entry, but also reduce the risk of errors and speed up the transaction.”
He explained: “At the moment, we receive the information from one party and then have to manually input the data on to our system. But the standard will eliminate this process as we will be able to drop the information automatically into our system.”
However, Barnett admitted the industry will need to have e-conveyancing in place to take advantage of the new standard.
“There is no common standard. I would like a system where I can do a remortgage in two hours, but it needs everyone in the chain to want to offer the same quality of service,” he said.
Nevertheless, a spokesman for the Land Registry commented: “The facts that it is already in existence, commercially neutral and being developed by the industry all point to its likely adoption as a standard for e-conveyancing.”
The cost of implementing the new standard is unknown, although Barnett thought it is unlikely to be tens of thousands of pounds.
