Improvements to Buying and Selling – Transparency, Efficiency and Speed
In April 2018, the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government published responses to their former report (December 2017) on the recommendations to improve the process of buying and selling a property. It has been said that selling and buying a property can be a fairly stressful procedure for the parties involved. The average length of time for the sale/purchase of a property is approximately 8-12 weeks from instruction to completion.
The Government believes there are ways which would help to improve the overall process in order to improve speed and efficiency. Some of the UK governments recommendations include encouraging greater transparency by solicitors, making more use of digital technology, buyers getting a mortgage offer decision in principle at an earlier stage and speeding up receipt of local authority searches. All recommendations are analysed thoroughly throughout the government’s response. That factor which has received the most positive feedback is the use of digital technology in an efficient way.
This would certainly reduce the amount of paperwork for the conveyancers and allow the transactional parties to sign documents online via electronic signature. However, concerns are prominent for those who are not ‘tech-savy’ and prefer face to face interaction with their solicitor receiving actual hard copy documents rather than e-communication. Despite this concern, only a small percentage (6%) of the public questioned gave the view that technology is not necessarily the solution.
For more information on how the government wishes to tackle these challenges please click here.