Agents trial ‘fair data sharing’ to speed-up transactions

Agents have begun trialling a new common technology framework devised by a committee within the Home Buying and Selling Group (HBSG) to improve transaction times.

The HBSG is tasked by the Government to come up with ways to improve the property market for buyers, sellers and professionals working in the sector.

A working group from software, proptech, search providers, estate agencies, and conveyancing sectors have devised what is described as a Property Data Trust Framework for the industry.

The aim is to create a common language, data, and technology standards needed by industry and property data custodians to make upfront information available and sharable in a digital format.

The framework will be used for documents such as the Buyers and Sellers Property Information form that the HSBG has launched.

Agents are currently trialling the inputting of information to test out the framework with the hope that it will provide a standardised way that the sector shares and verifies data and ultimately speed up transaction times.

HBSG committee member Tim Main told Estate Agent Today that the framework provides the “the skeleton by which data can flow through the whole process.”

The aim, according to the Property Data Trust Framework group, is that data is “FAIR - findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable and is supported by trusted information on the provenance of that data.”
 

The committee said in a LinkedIn post: “Most of our home buying and selling process remains heavily reliant on paper and forms and collecting information rather than data – from identity checks to affordability verification to property information forms – even when we scan, photo, and upload them electronically, they’re still the same bits of paper.

“Where we have created access to the data that we use in the home buying process today it is generally not fit for purpose. Most of our data isn’t recorded in a standardised format, it’s not typically stored or held in a way that makes it findable and accessible, and it’s not shareable in a trusted way – very little of our data meets the principles of being FAIR.

“Even worse, where we do have data that is fit for purpose, in a standardised format and accessible in the right way, we don’t have the framework or compliance structure to share it or trust it unless we access it directly ourselves.

“To help us transform the home buying process, we need the data we use to be findable, accessible, interoperable or reusable and we need a common framework across government and industry for sharing and trusting that data.”