For many homeowners, conveyancing is one of the most stressful and arduous hurdles on the journey to owning their own home. Conveyancing is the process of legally transferring ownership of a property from the previous owner to the new owner, and perhaps most importantly, making sure that no one else has a claim to the property. The process is carried out by solicitors, so this naturally incurs a cost that can differ wildly depending on who you approach. As with any professional service, the level of attention you receive, how quickly the service is carried out and the success of the process relies heavily on the provider.
Not many people know that you don’t have to instruct a local solicitor, which means you can open up your search nationally in order to find the best deal. While this might be a game changer for some home buyers, there is hope on the horizon that the entire process could soon be digitized, meaning faster conveyancing and more transparent fees.
The Land Registry recently consulted on the possibility that all paper property deeds could be replaced with digital versions. The Land Registry is responsible for registering the ownership of land and property in England and Wales. They also guarantee the titles, meaning that when they are instructed to change ownership from one person to another, no one can dispute this.
By switching to digital records, the conveyancing process could be much quicker, meaning that the process of finding your residential conveyancing solicitors would be much more transparent. Buyers would be able to field conveyancing quotes from solicitors all over the country and they would be much more confident about not choosing a local solicitor. A lot of people are wary about choosing any conveyancer, other than the one recommended by their estate agent, because of a fear that this will slow down the process. Digital conveyancing should help to ease these concerns and streamline the process for everyone and this is only possible due to the technological advancements in computing.
Digital land records will also likely increase the number of people who feel confident enough to do their own conveyancing, so we expect to see an increase in DIY conveyancing. Although it is possible, there are a lot more hurdles to doing your own conveyancing, and there are certain aspects which could be costly for the new owners if they don’t have experience in transferring the deeds to a property.
With online development in recent years through means such as comparison websites, companies are having to jump online to change their approach in capturing customers. Now this change to digital conveyancing, it’s a further online push in the real estate industry that is sure to change how people interact with the service.
