"Putting off the integration of cost-effective tech enhancements can hinder intermediary firms from running their businesses and servicing the needs of their clients more efficiency and effectively."
The rub is that we are now operating in an even more complex lending environment due to rising interest rates, swap rate volatility and escalating living costs. This heady combination is resulting in constant repricing, changes to criteria, and affordability calculations coming under greater scrutiny.
These all pose additional challenges for a lending community which, whilst pushing hard to integrate and deliver a smoother, more efficient application process for intermediaries and borrowers, is having to react accordingly to economic and market influences beyond their control.
Looking at the tech evolution over the wider housing and property market, it was encouraging to read that over 100,000 property transactions completed using a digitised register for local land charges. Since 2018, HM Land Registry (HMLR) has been working with local authorities across England and Wales to digitise records of local land charges (LLCs), including planning conditions, highways agreements, tree preservation orders, conservation areas, listed buildings and environmental health notices.
With adoption gathering pace over the last 12 months, Search Acumen’s analysis of property market data from HMLR indicates that the number of property buyers and their conveyancers benefitting from instant, 24/7 access to this information has now reached six figures, surpassing 107,000.
These findings show that Northern regions are setting the pace of change when it comes to delivering transactions using digitised LLCs. While the North West, North East and Yorkshire and Humberside account for just 23% of local authorities who have completed their digital switchover, they have delivered more than two in five (43%) of digitised transactions so far.
This is helped by the fact that Northern regions were home to 50% of the early adopters in 2018, when Liverpool and Blackpool were among the first four local authorities to digitise their local land charges. Since then, Liverpool alone has since seen more than 27,000 property transactions use the digital register to make faster assessments of any restrictions that might impact the buying and selling process.
On the back of this data, there was an interesting quote from Andrew Lloyd, managing director at Search Acumen who said, “With an even tighter deadline to reach on digitisation of API applications, there is growing momentum behind the practical application of technology to transform the transaction process. It’s vital that conveyancers don’t delay in engaging with change: procrastination is the enemy of progress when it comes to proptech.”
Advisers don’t often get the time or opportunity to procrastinate but I wholeheartedly agree with the sentiment that putting off the integration of cost-effective tech enhancements can hinder intermediary firms from running their businesses and servicing the needs of their clients more efficiency and effectively. Especially during a time when the value of the advice process is arguably at its highest.
This additional value is certainly evident for a range of clients and is only likely to grow for those firms who utilise technology to deliver the service levels and range of solutions which enable them to stand out from the crowd. All whilst minimising admin burdens and successfully managing and maximising all relationships with existing and potential new clients.
