With the stamp duty holiday now over, conveyancers and estate agents are looking forward to a more stable market with a little less pressure to meet artificial deadlines. This has meant a return to focus on some of the key issues that affect the home buying and selling process.
There is widespread agreement that things need to change, and a key plank of any change is the provision of more information to home buyers when they first view a property. It is highly unlikely we will see the return of the Home Information Packs, but there is clearly a consensus across the sector, that the provision of upfront information will benefit all parties in a conveyancing transaction.
Industry experts provide their view
Our webinar sought the views of some of the property industry’s top experts. CEO of Twindig, Anthony Codling, Head of National Trading Standards Estate and Letting Agents James Munro, Property Mark’s Simon Wilkinson and Integra Property Services’ Mike Day.
Our own sales director Richard Mathias started the session with a review of an article published the same day suggesting it was a legal requirement for all Estate Agents to have obtained Copies of the title register from HMLR before bringing property to the market. It is clearly necessary to be certain of who owns a property and all the necessary AML checks have taken place.
James Munro who leads the NTSEAT team, was keen to ensure agents obtained Key Material Information up front and explained why they are working with the property portals to help achieve this.
As much of the information required such as leasehold terms and conditions is of a technical nature, many agents often argue that this is the conveyancers’ job. Munro’s team are keen to change the culture in the industry and have the agents and vendors work in conjunction with conveyancers, to ensure the timely provision of these Key Material Facts
Simon Wilkinson of PropertyMark went on to explain how his firm had been using the PropertyMark tool kit, which included a PIQ questionnaire with every seller for the last 2 years. They had seen a marked reduction in transaction times prior to the pandemic and Simon was confident that these time savings would now be repeated as the market begins to settle down.
Business Opportunities?
Mike Day believes that rather than an administrative burden there are huge opportunities for both agents and conveyancers. He went on to detail them as follows:
- Estate agents are compliant with Consumer Protection Legislation
- Buyers get to see key material information
- Sellers have less problems with housing transactions falling through
- Law firms can share key information with Estate Agents including PIQ, ID checks and Title information
- Conveyancers can win more conveyancing instructions from agents
- Lawyers and agents can work in partnership for the greater good.
Minerva – a tried and tested solution
Minerva has been enabling Estate Agents and Conveyancers to share information digitally since 2019.
Major northern estate agency Ryder & Dutton has marketed over 2000 properties with all the above in place using Minerva.
Book a demo to see Minerva in action.
This article was submitted to be published by LFS/Minerva as part of their advertising agreement with Today’s Conveyancer. The views expressed in this article are those of the submitter and not those of Today’s Conveyancer.
