The announcement of reforms to the property market have come at just the right time, the Council for Licensed Conveyancers (CLC) says, after research revealed a lack of confidence in the home buying and selling process.
Fewer than half of the property professionals who took part in the CLC’s latest confidence tracker survey said they were confident in current market stability, 45% down from 54% asked the same question earlier this year.
Consumer confidence was also down, from 36% to 21% for buyers and from 24% to 15% for sellers. This also reflects sentiment about the state of the economy.
The CLC is now urging its practices to throw their support behind the changes, which follow two major public consultations. The CLC supports the government’s view that the reforms will be transformative, reducing delays and the unacceptably high level of transactions falling through.
This will be achieved by the introduction of legally binding agreements, supported by sales packs containing all the information prospective buyers may need upfront. Buyers and sellers can therefore make informed decisions and have confidence much earlier in the process that the transaction will complete.
Stephen Ward, head of strategy and external relations at the CLC, says: “The CLC has a long history of championing innovation and modernisation, and we will be working hard to ensure these reforms take hold.
“This is a significant and exciting step forward in improving the whole process, not just for consumers but also everyone involved in home buying and selling, so we urge the property market to continue its collaboration to make this vision a reality.”
Just 17% of the 87 respondents thought the speed and efficiency of the conveyancing process was improving and the average transaction time was still static at between three and four months.
Over a third of respondents (36%) also admitted they had been holding off investing in new technologies or redesigning processes until the detail of the reforms had been announced.
Stephen Ward adds: “I firmly believe we will look back on this moment as a major turning point in transforming a broken system into one in which consumers and professionals alike will have much greater clarity, certainty and confidence.”
The CLC, together with Raidiam and the Open Property Data Association, is currently working on the pilot of a Smart Data Property Trust Framework under which information can be shared securely and with confidence in accuracy and provenance between the different parties in a transaction. This has been made possible thanks to a £750,000 grant from the Regulators’ Pioneer Fund.
The regulator was also recently announced as part of a new government AI Growth Lab which will help lawtech companies and conveyancing firms test out new AI products in a controlled environment before they take them out to market.
