Govt announces plan to digitise home buying process

The government has announced plans to digitise home buying and selling so it is “fit for the 21st century” and the process is streamlined, helping more people onto the housing ladder.

Working with the property market and Land Registry, the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) is aiming to modernise transactions “to bring down current delays of almost five months”.

It proposes easier data sharing between parties and introducing digital identity services, with all information in reach immediately, reducing the need to share ID in person and on multiple occasions, lessening the chance of transactions failing.

MHCLG said that “fall throughs” happened to one in three property transactions, costing people around £400 million a year. This, it said, was in addition to the four million working days conveyancers and estate agents lose, equivalent to £1 billion.

“By making information available at people’s fingertips, it will be far less likely for surprises to be encountered later on in the process,” the housing department stated.

MHCLG pointed to the inefficiencies of paper-based information and documents in non-machine readable formats, including with building control and highways information. And even with the information available electronically, it …