Like the giant Himalayan lily (pictured), plans for breakthroughs in digital conveyancing seem to come into flower once every seven or eight years. Obiter is old enough to remember HM Land Registry’s bold but unfortunately named ‘chain matrix’. This would not just place existing interactions online but ‘re-engineer the way conveyancing is done in this country’, the project’s top bod enthused back in, er, 2005. It didn’t happen – partly because the plan included a wildly hubristic scheme to set up a new bank to hold purchase money while transactions went through.
Fast forward a few years and the Law Society had a go, unveiling a scheme called Veyo, described as ‘the home of conveyancing’. The technology looked promising but the scheme was wound up in 2015, reportedly because it found itself in competition with other, free products.
Now, in an announcement heavily trailed to the national press and broadcast media, the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government says digitising the process will ‘make it easier for people to get onto the housing ladder, reduce the requirement to share ID in-person in the long-term, and decrease the number of transactions collapsing’.
How this shapes up remains to be seen, but Obiter wonders who will seed the incomparable e-conveyancing bloom of 2032.
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