The government is planning to digitalise data shared during property sales in England and Wales to tackle delays in transactions and speed up the homebuying process.
Labour has announced a 12-week project to decide on the “design and implementation of agreed rules on data” so that it can easily be shared between conveyancers, lenders and other parties involved in a transaction.
The changes aim to modernise the “cumbersome” process by allowing information that is often paper-based or not machine-readable to be shared more easily.
The housing and planning minister, Matthew Pennycook, said: “We are streamlining the cumbersome homebuying process so that it is fit for the 21st century, helping homebuyers save money, gain time and reduce stress while also cutting the number of house sales that fall through.”
The move is part of Labour’s plans for housing which also including overhauling planning rules, building 1.5m homes and reforming leaseholds.
Legislation will be introduced next week to give leaseholders power over the way their service charges are spent.
When buying a home, conveyancing typically takes several weeks, but waiting for documents needed for property searches and other parts of the process can lead to delays.
The website Rightmove said it takes five months on average from an offer being accepted to moving into a property, and that “digitising” the property market is key to helping accelerate the process.
Rightmove’s chief executive, Johan Svanstrom, said the five months is in addition to the initial two months it usually takes to find a property and agree an offer.
Svanstrom added: “The current process also contributes to an average of more than one in five home sales falling through, and hopefully a better process can help reduce this as well.”
A “fully digitalised” homebuying and selling process would mean mortgage companies and surveyors can access the information they need immediately with identity checks only carried out once, the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government said.
Building control and highways information are among the documentation needed that is predominantly paper-based or not machine-readable.
A lack of protocol for accessing, sharing and verifying data that is available electronically also contributes to holdups, the ministry said.
The ministry will work with HM Land Registry (HMLR) and experts from the Digital Property Market Steering Group – a coalition of government and industry partners – on the 12-week project.
HMLR will also lead 10-month pilots with councils, focused on opening up more data and making it digital.
Plans for digital identity verification services also aim to make property transactions move forward more quickly.
As part of leasehold reforms, some new legislation will come into force on 3 March. This will give leaseholders powers to decide how their service charges are spent and remove the requirement for leaseholders to cover the legal fees of their freeholder when making a right-to-manage claim.
This could save them up to £3,000 for the most costly claims and reduce the incentive for landlords to obstruct the process, the government said.
Pennycook said the reforms would allow leasehold homeowners to “more easily and cheaply take control of the buildings they live in and clamp down on unreasonable or extortionate charges”.
PA Media contributed to this report