The property settlement process looks set to improve thanks to a new collaboration between the Bank of England, HM Land Registry, Bank of International Settlements and Coadjute.
Yesterday the Bank of England announced the completion of Project Meridian, a digital synchronised settlement prototype promising to reshape the way property payments are conducted, benefiting consumers, businesses, HM Land Registry and the wider property market.
To help ensure buyers and sellers see payment transfers go ahead as planned on completion day, preventing delays to keys being released, or sales to even fall through, a new approach used in the prototype was announced yesterday, which replaces the numerous manual steps and checks and avoids the exchanging of paper-based documents entirely. The aim is to reduce the risk of fraud or transactions being delayed at the eleventh hour.
The settlement prototype works by digitising the workflow between the commercial Banks, the Bank of England and HM Land Registry. Conveyancers connect to the service and send instructions which reserve funds. Then, at a pre-set date and time, the funds for that property transaction, or even for a whole chain of transactions, are moved in synchronisation. Immediately the funds are moved, digital deeds are issued, and instructions sent to HM Land Registry to update the register.
The prototype paves the way for the process to be made significantly more transparent and efficient, and reduces the risk of fraud.
John Reynolds, project director and COO at Coadjute, said “Settlement is particularly complex and can only be tackled through deep collaboration and partnership with the public sector. What the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) Innovation Hub London Centre has done fantastically well here is create an open, innovative and collaborative environment for the public and private sector to work together to do just that.”
I await to see how a wonderful revolution can be ruined yet….
However, on the face of it this should end the unnessesary misery for hundreds of thousands of people through the year of woeful service resulting in late key release.
Or at least it will remove the bullpoo excuse for it.
Will mean though that 1pm will be (or should be) a hard change owner point. So agents and conveyancer will actually have to start advising about being out on time. Moreover will have to have a solid plan in place to give new owners access at the point they’ve paid for the property.
I’m looking forward to there being no more excuses for idiocy, bad service, and bad practice.
This is sorely needed.
Of course, if you’re sat in the conveyancing accounts dept you might wish to consider how many of you will be made redundant…..
Same with EA. If your job is managing completion day then might be worth considering if your role will be defunct once buyers and sellers know they can just let each other crack on and have a defined crossover time on the day.
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This is a great solution to the complete mess that is the completion day process.
The current process is hugely inefficient, creates a terrible experience for those moving house and comes with huge uncertainty throughout the day.
I welcome this initiative and look forward to early adoption across the market.
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