A coalition of government, legal and business groups tasked with exploring how e-conveyancing can speed up the home buying and selling process has unveiled its second action plan.

The Digital Property Market Steering Group was set up in 2023 ‘to help the property market work better for all by accelerating the adoption of digital technology, while ensuring it is transparent, secure and consumer friendly, through collaboration and innovation across the sector’.

The steering group’s first ‘roadmap’ was published in January 2024. Actions for the year ahead included a consultation on upfront information.

Three priorities are set out in the second roadmap: expanding access to property-related data; creating secure frameworks to share data; and identifying standards for digital identity that work for the whole property transaction.

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‘Milestones’ for the next 12 months include a local authority data pilot to test digitising and opening up building regulations and highways data, a 12-week research project to consider the design and implementation of agreed rules on data standards and interoperability, and a report on the digital health of the property sector.

The steering group announced it has developed the first iteration of a digital property information protocol, which will ‘establish pathways for adopting digital processes’ and ‘address key pain points identified by industry practitioners’.

The Department for Science, Innovation and Technology has also joined the coalition, which is now chaired by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government.

 

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