Strategy 2002-2003

Electronic conveyancing (e-conveyancing)

The public desire a quicker and less stressful way of buying and selling property and we are aim to re-engineer the conveyancing process. The Land Registration Act 2002 (in force October 2003) provides most of the legislative framework for a fully electronic process that handles transactions online.

It is essential that practitioners are at ease with a process that will fundamentally change the relationship between themselves and the Land Registry and which meets their working needs as well as ours.

Our present expectation is that, under the new system, conveyancers will prepare electronic documents and verify the details against the register. They will then be able to use a secure network to communicate drafts to the other parties to the transaction and obtain approval of the documents. When they are finally approved, documents can automatically be given legal effect through the results being entered on the Land Register. Setting the system up will be our single most important task over the next decade.

We will consult all those involved in the process, first on broad system design and then on specific (particularly regulatory) issues. A 3 month nationwide consultation exercise will gather views. These will form part of a report to Ministers in early 2003. We will hold discussions with potential suppliers and procure the system, ready to pilot it in 2005 and implement it in 2006.

In March, we were awarded £1,556,025 over two years (February 2003, March 2004) under the Invest to Save Budget. This funding will be used to design, build and pilot the proposed new system of conveyancing and to develop a full business case for national implementation.