Estate agents and conveyancers work together... impossible?

One of the characteristics of the property market that makes it unusual is how many different professions are involved to complete a property transaction. The estate agent of course, but also the conveyancer, mortgage broker, mortgage lender, surveyor… the list goes on. They all have to work together seamlessly to complete a property transaction.

It’s no wonder that property transactions take so long, with everyone conducting their own process and also having to depend on others. If property transactions are ever to speed up, somehow all these different parties need to be able to work together more smoothly.

Agents, conveyancers and brokers don’t all want to use the same software

So how do you ensure that happens? The first option is to change the whole process. Make them all use the same software. Insist on a new workflow that they all have to follow. Perhaps even combine all of them or automate the entire process.

This kind of radical approach delights the academics, as in theory, it should work. The trouble is that in practice it doesn’t. There are thousands of estate agents, conveyancers and mortgage brokers and they don’t all want to use the same software or work in the same way. It’s not just the property market either, but the buyers and sellers too, who are understandably reluctant to take risks with something as important as a property purchase. They don’t want disruptive technology, what they want is a trusted professional and a speedy, transparent and easy process.

We don’t replace anyone’s existing software, we connect it

So what’s the alternative? Well, the second option is not to drastically change the process but just to enable it to run more smoothly. In this approach, you accept that there need to be many parties involved in a property transaction, that they all have their own way of doing things and they have to work together. So what you do is support the current process and make it easy for all the parties involved to work together.

This is the approach that Coadjute is taking to speed up the property transaction. We don’t replace anyone’s existing software, we connect it. We don’t expect parties to stop communicating with each other, we make it quicker, easier and more secure for them to do so.

It doesn’t change the process, it just makes it quicker and easier for everyone

Coadjute works like a ‘National Grid’ for sharing data in the property market, linking the different software everyone uses and enabling previously undreamt of features. For example, instead of calling another party to find if an action has been done, once you are connected, it can be automatically updated on your property software when they enter it on theirs. Instead of sending emails and uploading documents, you can just communicate securely with the other parties from within your existing software. So it doesn’t change the process, it just makes it quicker and easier for everyone.

Coadjute is being rolled out starting this year, so look out for new features appearing in your software.

We can’t guarantee estate agents and conveyancers will always see eye-to-eye. But we can make it a lot easier for them to work together.