Maria Harris, chair of the Open Property Data Association (OPDA) has called for the entire home buying and selling process to be digitised within three years. For the insurance and claims industry, this shift promises significant ramifications, impacting everything from risk assessment to fraud prevention.
Maria Harris gave evidence on 13 May 2024, at the Commons Select Committee, run by the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities. The Committee was probing whether the consumer experience of home buying and selling could be improved and whether improvements are likely to be by voluntary initiatives or whether legislation may be necessary.
Maria was providing evidence alongside Kate Faulkner, chair of the Home Buying and Selling Group and Paula Higgins, chief executive of HomeOwners Alliance.
Digitising the process
Maria called for the entire home buying and selling process to be digitised. She revealed that companies using OPDA’s data standard for digital property packs had seen time reduced from offer accepted on a house and a mortgage, to exchange of contracts in just 15 days, “with zero fall throughs, zero fraud, a much better customer experience and more certainty around the moving date.” Maria added, “It is also taking hundreds of hours out of the process as that waste of time is not there. So if we had widespread adoption of standards and we digitised the data at source we would reform the [home moving] process dramatically.”
She also called for home sellers to instruct a conveyancer right at the start of the process even before a property was listed. The Committee questioned the impact of this, and the conclusion was that it would significantly shorten the time spent on a house purchase while providing more certainty that a transaction is likely to go ahead. Where a similar process operates in Scotland it was revealed that there was very little, if any, drop-off due to speculative sales.
For insurers and claims professionals, this efficiency translates to more accurate and timely data, reducing the risk of underwriting errors and expediting claims processing. Enhanced digital records could also streamline the validation of property details and ownership, minimising disputes and simplifying the claims lifecycle.
The complexity of the current process
The Home Buying and Selling Group gave evidence on the complexity of the current process. CEO Kate Faulkner revealed there was a list of 300 things that the buyer, lender or removal company may need to know before they actually s