Goldsmith: We need to create a trusted e-community
The chairman of the Conveyancing Association has called on the government to create a new portal to help fill the void left by the collapse of Veyo.
Eddie Goldsmith said conveyancing consumers suffered from a “lack of knowledge” about the process and he would like to see a “government initiative” to create an information portal.
Speaking to Legal Futures at last week’s Conveyancing Conference, he said the portal could include “signposting to the best way to sell property” and “education on the all methods of home moving”.
Stressing that the Conveyancing Association did not yet have detailed plans for a portal but was interested in all the options, Mr Goldsmith said the government portal could direct consumers to a further portal, designed by the conveyancing industry.
“We need to create a trusted e-community for conveyancing, which would sit on top of all existing case management systems and integrate with them,” he said.
He said that, unlike Veyo, the new portal would rely on “buy-in” from all the stakeholders involved in conveyancing, including estate lenders, lenders, brokers and the Land Registry.
The Law Society and Indian technology giant Mastek pulled the plug on Veyo this time last year, costing the society £7m. Veyo attempted to combine a case management system with ‘chain view’, which would allow all the parties involved in a conveyancing transaction to see the progress of a chain
“I’m still not sure what Veyo was intended to be,” Mr Goldsmith said. “It seemed to be another case management system for conveyancing – one that was neither needed nor asked for.”
However, he said there was still a need for a portal which offered “greater transparency” on the progress of a chain.
Later at a panel session, Graham Farrant, chief executive of the Land Registry said that following the government’s decision in the Autumn Statement not to proceed with privatisation, there had been a recognition that the service “might actually be quite important”.
Mr Farrant went on: “If you want to build a million new homes, we might be able to help identify some new sites. Actually, the best way to do that is having a complete land register.”
He said the government had asked the Land Registry to try and register the remaining 17% of unregistered land by 2020, and asked it to look at ways of improving the conveyancing process.
Mr Farrant said the intention was that the Land Registry would work with other government bodies, such as the Ministry of Justice, and the industry on ways to make conveyancing, faster, cheaper and simpler.
“Leasehold is the number one issue. You all know that if there’s leasehold in a chain, it can probably add five weeks to it.”
Mr Farrant said some form of register of leasehold interests might help, along with limiting the use of restrictions between landlord and tenant. In the meantime, he said the Land Registry was forging ahead with its plans for a central portal for local land charges.
Mr Farrant said work with the first local authorities on the project would begin next spring, heralding the start of what would probably be a “five-year roll-out”. He described centralising land charges as a “big job”, involving 326 local authorities and 30 million records.
The chief executive added that his ultimate goal was a fully digital register, including mortgages and local authority information.
“What a difference that would make to local authorities, estate agents and conveyancers. Your practices are heavily digitised, but our interface is not digital enough, although we’ve been making some big strides. The world is changing, the profession is changing and I think we’re nearly ready.”
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