The Coronavirus pandemic had had a big impact on the issue of confirming client identities, especially in the homebuying and selling market. The virus has in effect sped up the sector’s need to adopt technology, because conveyancers and other stakeholders in the property chain are unable to meet people as often as they usually would in the current climate.
Couple that with an increase of property and mortgage fraud during the pandemic as a result of the sector not being geared up to take digital steps, it was agreed that something needed to be done.
On Wednesday 27 January 2021 the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Digital ID met to discuss the issue with regards to the property market.
At the start of the meeting, presentations were made by Glynis Frew, CEO of Hunter’s Estate Agent, Stuart Young, Managing Director of Etive Technologies and Stephen Ward from the Council of Licensed Conveyancers.
The floor was then opened for all of the delegates to ask questions and discuss the issue surrounding digital ID and the property sector.
- There are approximately 1.2m housing transactions per annum. 300k of these fail. ID is checked multiple times throughout the process (estate agents, solicitors/conveyancers, mortgage brokers/lenders).
This means there is approximately 14m copies of ID ‘floating’ around and these are stored for 7 years. These can be on mobile phones, on computer systems or just files of paper copies. Hence the call for a standardised Digital ID framework to be produced to ensure that a client’s ID is copied only once during the housing transaction process and this can then be shared to all parties involved in the transaction. - The Digital ID scheme would fall under the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) who are working on producing a framework to help facilitate digital ID in the homebuying and selling process. However, digital ID covers multiple departments and regulators so would need to have cross departmental input (HM Land Registry, Ministry of Housing Communities and Local Government (MCHLG), Solicitors Regulation Authority, Council of Licensed Conveyancers, CiLEX etc)
- It was agreed by all of those involved that the scheme would face obstacles and as such these would need to be ironed out, and Parliament can help prevent these legal blockers from happening
- Liability – especially conveyancers liability – was a big topic. More work is being done on this to prevent conveyancers being liable, especially as so much pressure falls on their shoulders with regards to housing transactions
It was agreed that the current situation is not perfect, and some of the issues raised at the meeting would indeed need to be ironed out. However, the roads the industry has made so far has helped to improve the process and this is only set to get better and better. Providing a better client journey and helping all stakeholders involved in the process.
What are your thoughts on digital ID being used? How would you feel if it was only produced once by the client?
