The Law Society is set to pilot plans to make key information for home buyers and sellers available at a much earlier stage in the conveyancing process.
The TA6 is a form which contains crucial information relating to the sale of a property covering areas including compliance with building and planning applications, the supply of services, flooding, and common parts shared with neighbours as well as information relating to Japanese Knotweed and septic tanks.
Until now the information was only collated post-offer, after a solicitor has been instructed, but the Law Society, working with its conveyancing and land law committee, InfoTrack, and Perfect Portal, has identified key early marketing questions that can be completed, up front, in a transaction in what will be known as the TA6 Part 1.
“Technological change in the conveyancing market has accelerated as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic,” said Law Society of England and Wales president Stephanie Boyce.
“This project will continue that technological advancement and innovation, helping consumers, estate agents and solicitors to seamlessly collect key marketing information using the familiar, but wholly digitised TA6 workflow.
“The answers to the questions in the new TA6 Part 1 will help to inform a buyer’s decision to purchase and will support industry-wide initiatives to begin the systemic collection of up-front information about a property.
“We look forward to making the TA6 Part 1 available to our network of forms’ licensees and solicitors following the conclusion of the pilot and are hopeful it can assist in reducing the time it takes to achieve completion from the point of instruction, as well as supporting earlier instruction of a solicitor.”
Scott Bozinis, Chief Executive Officer at InfoTrack explained: “The Law Society TA6 form is the industry standard for property information, which is part of the sale contract. InfoTrack are the only UK supplier of fully digitised and licenced TA Protocol forms, delivered through our onboarding solution, eCOS. Collecting the key TA6 data when the property is marketed, before an offer is made, will empower estate agents to source suitably informed buyers and bring conveyancers closer to the sellers.”
Yvonne Hirons, Chief Executive Officer and Founder of Perfect Portal added: “Our software integrates with the estate agents CRM system, Reapit. This allows the agents to offer the TA6 Part 1 questions to the sellers when they are adding their property details into Reapit. The seller will be able to access the questions within their law firm’s mobile app to complete at a pre-instruction stage. This will not only help the seller market their property, but it will also help the law firm’s build stronger instructions from the outset. This is revolutionary; it will help reduce the drop off rate as all parties involved will now have access to the important property information in advance.”
Rob Hailstone, of Bold Legal Group, responding to news of the initiative, told EYE:
“It is no secret that I am a supporter of ‘seller’s packs’, and this initiative looks like a step in the right direction.
“However, key information for home buyers and sellers is one thing. But in order to speed up the process, make it less stressful and reduce fall throughs you need a comprehensive seller’s pack created by a property lawyer, for a property lawyer, much like an auction pack.”
Anything to speed up transactions. Can we have the searches added to the list or at least having the searches applied for prior to launching a property.
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Dare I say Home Condition Reports too?
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Regrettably, local searches for every instruction are impractical. Assuming half of all instructions sells, demand for local searches would double; taken together with searches being regarded as being out of date after three months, local authorities would be swamped (predictably, local searches currently taking up to 9 weeks in some authority areas could take three times as long!).
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Pragmatism winning out here.
This makes SUCH a lot of sense – people are already using these forms as part of the transaction so there’ll be less resistance to their introduction.
Obviously this is only part of the solution but a sensible first step to getting sellers to start thinking about issues with their property.
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Very excited to be working closely on this. it is a shame that local searches, produced for the seller and regularly refreshed are not more widely accepted by purchasers solicitors even with an accompany indemnity. This is an area very much on the agenda for change.
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Hi, I own one of the largest Search Companies in the UK and I can assure you of two things, firstly searches aren’t taking 9 weeks, in fact the vast majority (by this I mean 95% of LA’s are taking less than 2 weeks) sure there are some horror stories that dominate the headlines, but 95% of them are fine and so we shouldn’t dramatise the situation.
Secondly and most importantly, the point of searches up front is not to make sure you have an ‘in date’ search at the point of exchange, the point is to uncover any potential hiccups that searches could create and therefore solve these issues before a buyer is found.
Lets say, for example, that a search reveals planning conditions for an extension that weren’t met at the time of the build or a missing Building Control certificate……doing the searches up front gives the seller/agent/solicitor time to resolve these issues before a buyer is found or the chain completed.
It’s about forward thinking and ironing out potential issues before they become a pressure point for the chain and putting the transaction at risk.
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My colleagues and I are currently beta testing our Property Transaction Pack portal [Word removed as it breached posting guidelines], which will be free for agents and lawyers to use shortly.”
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Very disappointing. This idea is already in existence – it’s called …the …contract ….pack! We already get it as the first action of a seller, once the buyer opens their file.
Over the last 12 months, receipt of the contract pack has been no issue at all.
What takes time are factors that are NOT being addressed, and there are no plans to:
1. the quality of the actual conveyancer – which is the lowest level in 20 years, and which adds weeks if not months to a deal
2. the questions in the Property Information Form – make it a bold front page to say other enquiries are not to be used unless absolutely necessary, as the form is considered sufficient….and then make the form contain the usual enquiries conveyancers ask and expressly state on the form examples of questions NOT to ask/answer.
But upfront information? So depressing that that is considered an issue. 1000s of deals alone for us his year and that is not a relevant factor.
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How long would you say it takes for you to receive a contract package once you are instructed by the buyer?
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What’s new? Legal auction/formal tender packs already have all the information in them to exchange contracts immediately. Unless EVERYTHING is in the pack there will be delays. And who’s going to pay for all the information? The main reason Home Information Packs never got off the ground was the fear that sellers would not place their homes on the market if they knew they would have a bill of hundreds of pounds to pay if they had to take their house off the market for any reason. As 456 says below, amend the system as most other English Law countries like NZ have done to commit both parties earlier.
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Great idea – this should be compulsory to put a property on the market just like an EPC. In New Zealand the vendor is responsible for ordered a LIM (Land Information Pack) from the local authority, and if the property is leasehold, or there are service charges payable, you also have to gather all the information in regards to this upfront, before you go to market, and you as the Vendor are responsible for the costs. It helps to stop people speculatively putting their home on the market as they have upfront costs, and massively speeds up transaction times. You make your offer based on conditions, with an agreement to then go unconditional (i.e. exchange) within a few days. Imagine being able to move in to your new home within a month of having your offer accepted!
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My thoughts on the conveyancing world are well documented on this site.
Personally this looks like a plaster over a gapping wound. Not really going to change much. Its still the attitude of the profession that needs to change.
Its a step in the right direction but too little too late.
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This is an exciting development from the Law Society. [Sentences removed as they breached posting guidelines]
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Absolutely agree – Our [Word removed as it breached posting guidelines] service already provides a customer journey that enables clients to complete their official transaction forms online at the point of listing. We pull this information into an agent branded mini website for every listing along with property data sets, media links and lead generation tools for agents.
The [Word removed as it breached posting guidelines]provides the agent with the perfect vehicle to enact change whilst supporting their brand and proven listing tool. This is definitely the way forward but also requires a nurture and sweep-up process. Bruce Adams | [Word removed as it breached posting guidelines]
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Law Society are responding to industry pressure.
We have been working with PIPhome.co.uk for a number of months utilising their data room (powered by the EIG Group) and have been providing all property related documentation including title; replies to enquiries searches and contract documentation with great success.
The power of the document room enables all documents to be held in one area accessible to all parties, seller, buyer (inc prospects) and conveyancers.
Has proved particularly valuable on development sites given the large number of documents that have to be supplied.
Have seen significant reduction in transaction times.
Can highly recommend. Currently free to estate agents and solicitors alike.
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