Let's share data, not documents: Revolutionising the property market

Documents have dominated the property market for as long as most of us can remember. From title deeds to local searches, mortgage offers to surveys, the amount of documentation required to buy or sell a home is staggering.

And of course, sharing, accessing, and handling the constant conveyor belt of paperwork and PDFs adds a great deal of stress to the property transaction process. On top of this it opens the door to a number of issues, including data duplication, rekeying of information, inconsistencies, fraud, and forgery. The list of potential problems goes on and on, as do the documents!

Could sharing data instead of documents be the answer? The reason we ask this is simple, and it’s not just a question of semantics. Documents and data are not the same thing. While documents do contain data, the information is trapped on paper or PDF in a snapshot in time. The only way to use it in another form or for another purpose is to manually move it by writing it in another form or typing it out. However, were that same information to be stored as data, that data is only entered once and is able to be reused many times across the property transaction.

In this post, we'll discuss how a more collaborative approach to sharing data in the property market can increase efficiency, transparency, and security. The steps we are taking to make this possible, as well as how it will make everyone's experience easier, faster, and more enjoyable.

The advantage of sharing data

Get the right information at the right time
Data is fluid, not static like a document. It can be easily refreshed or updated to reflect new information. As a result, everyone involved in a transaction can make informed decisions based on the most up to date information available. This capability is essential for property transactions where time is of the essence. Those dark days of asking for the most recent PDF version of a document would be gone, for good.

Everyone can see what they need to see
Physical documents need to be reprinted to be shared which can lead to incorrect or outdated information being passed around quite quickly. When all parties have access to the same real-time data, everyone is on the same page. As a result, errors, delays, and discrepancies are reduced, if not eliminated. Additionally, each party can access the information they need without having to wade through endless emails and PDFs.

Security is at its heart
For all the good intentions in the world, documents can be lost in the mail, erroneously attached to emails or lost from email chains all-together causing delays and stress, and you can never be 100% sure where the information has come from. When the data is moved across a secure form of blockchain, like with Coadjute - you can see where the data came from and verify it independently.

Designed to facilitate collaboration and interoperability
Data is made for sharing. By sharing information stored as pieces of data and not documents, that data is only entered once and is able to be reused many times, across all of the forms required to complete a property transaction. Accessing, sharing, and exchanging the property data across multiple platforms and systems—seamlessly.

Why is data not being shared more openly today?

It’s a good question. There are a number of reasons for this, let us explain.

Fragmentation abounds - they say it takes a village to raise a child, and the same can be said when completing a property transaction. The process involves many parties and as each has their own systems, motivations, and ways of doing things, sharing data between them can be challenging—to say the least.

Standards are lacking - until now, property data has been fragmented and inconsistent across the various systems and platforms used by property professionals. As a result of a lack of industry standards and in some cases outdated technology it has been difficult to synchronise and share information seamlessly.

Security concerns remain - property data often contains sensitive information about individuals and their finances. Without a secure or standardised way to share data, regulatory and legal concerns are always top of mind. And rightly so.

What can we do to make data sharing easier?

Firstly we must overcome the issues that make sharing data difficult. With our network, we're making data sharing easy, safe, and secure across all systems and platforms through the latest technology.

However, we're not just doing this on our own; we're partnering with industry leaders who are also trying to make a difference. For example, we are collaborating with The Home Buying & Selling Technology Group (HB&SG) to support the implementation of the Property Data Trust Framework by addressing siloed systems, closed platforms, and a lack of trusted standards.

We know real-time data sharing is the future of the property market and we are committed to making it a reality. Just this week in fact, we launched our revolutionary Digital Property Data Pack, which is set to drastically reduce property transaction times and spur innovation across the industry.

By collating data from trusted sources across the market, such as HM Land Registry, Sprift, and Groundsure, we enable sellers to automatically complete and share property information with other parties. Our pack is the first of its kind on the UK property market and brings with it unique capabilities:

Standardised access to open data
It's the first pack that fully implements the Home Buying and Selling Group's Property Data Trust Framework (PDTF), ensuring data is standardised for everyone.

Seamless sharing without rekeying
It allows data to be shared and uploaded in a format other than PDF (for the first time in the UK), meaning that it can be entered by a seller and uploaded and forwarded to a conveyancer's system instantly.

View in the format of your choice
At the click of a button, the pack can be viewed in a variety of standard formats, from Law Society TA6 to BASPI to proprietary formats.

Trust built on provenance of data
The pack gives users complete transparency, allowing them to see and compare what different providers think each field of the form should be for each data point (known as provenance).

Data sources are infinite
Data can be populated automatically from a potentially infinite number of data sources on Coadjute's open network. And this is just the beginning. The range and depth of data available will continue to expand as our ecosystem grows.

Our Digital Property Pack is now available to all users of the Coadjute network, so don't miss out on the property market's data revolution. Join us now!

For more information visit our website.