Time To Overhaul UK’s Antiquated Conveyancing System

Following the Government’s announcement to simplify the buying process, the talk across the country currently is all about housing, or lack of it, spiralling prices and a broken system. As with anything in the political sphere, talk is cheap and action is costly, so just what do we need to do to put us on a par with the rest of the world?

At the heart of the issue is our antiquated conveyancing system, which is currently the slowest process across the major nations of the world. On average, the process to buy a home in the UK takes 10-12 weeks, whilst over one third of all property sales fall through due to issues, frustrations or changes of circumstance that arise during conveyancing. Compare this to the fastest of them all, the USA, where the home buying timeline averages between 30 to 60 days. Even our Commonwealth cousins in Australia, New Zealand and Canada benefit from a system that, at its longest, takes 90 days for a sale to go through.

So, if we really are to ‘Get Britain Building Again’ or want to breathe life back into a stagnant market, we need to streamline the process and incorporate smart technology - in a nutshell; cut the bureaucracy and outdated requirements that are analogue in a digital world.

Whist we have seen the general adoption of ID verification apps, such as Thirdfort, that have helped speed up a task that once required documents to be submitted in their original form, there are still archaic methods that require digitisation.

As a starting point, a standardised Open Forum or Portal with full transparency of each process point within the conveyance process and every moment in time captured and recorded, which everyone in the chain can access, would reap immediate benefits by keeping everyone in the loop and reduce blind chasing and miscommunication.

From there, the technology is readily available to digitise many of the conveyancing processes, such as switching to verified electronic signatures, document uploading, online survey management and so on. It's perfectly possible that the time to sell can be reduced by up to 70%, which would mean the UK is perfectly capable of matching the speed of its global neighbours.

Let's hear it for influential figures and 'out of the box' minds from businesses and industry bodies to taskforce a standard conveyancing protocol. Ripping up the rule book is a must.