The Digital Property Market Steering Group (DPMSG) has been created to accelerate the adoption of technology across the sectors to improve processes for legal property professionals, surveyors, conveyancers, lenders and estate agents.
Other founding members include the Law Society, Conveyancing Association (CA), Council for Licensed Conveyancers, The Society of Licensed Conveyancers, Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS), Chartered Institute of Legal Executives (CILEX), CILEx Regulation, Council of Property Search Organisations and HM Land Registry.
The vision of the group is for anyone who buys, leases or sells land or property to “experience a secure and modern market that is transparent, customer-friendly and business-friendly at all stages”.
DMPSG will comprise four working groups which will focus on public commitment and be delivered at the Digital Property Market conference on 12 September as well as removing barriers with upfront information. It will also highlight research and development with a digital identity scheme and increase transparency by advocating for data initiatives.
This also comes as the government published a Geospatial Commission report which looked at how location data, technology and services could create innovation in the property market.
Diane Latter, policy adviser at the Law Society, said: “Although there is no silver bullet, digitisation will be transformative in this work, especially in relation to ID, digital deeds, digital registration, and providing important information to consumers about both the process and the property at an early stage.
“We recognise that the combined efforts of the whole sector – regulators, professional and trade bodies, and government – are needed to achieve this. This new group provides a forum for collaboration and achieving change, while enabling individual members to progress their own work in a coordinated way.”
Nicky Heathcote, non-executive chair at the Conveyancing Association, added: “At the CA, we want to boost confidence and investment in the digitisation of the property market by demonstrating how Government and industry regulators, professional and trade bodies are aligned and committed to working together to enable and accelerate positive change.”
