Conveyancing can be the bottle neck in the house buying process, with antiquated, paper based methods that slow things down, but change is on the horizon.

The conveyancing sector is facing digital transformation, which should remove many of the inefficiencies and reduce the time between instruction, offer and completion.

In March 2018 the first digital mortgage deed using an electronic signature was entered into the Land Register. The Land Registry is also testing the first version of a new service for e-mortgage deeds and eventually wants to remove the need for a person to witness a borrower sign a paper mortgage deed. The Land Registry aims to digitise 95% of daily transactions by 2022. There is also a desire to give all parties in the house buying process access to an online portal so everyone knows what is going on and at what stage the transaction is at.

In addition the Land Registry is testing a new national Local Land Charges Register working with Local Authorities in England to migrate their records to a centralised digital register which should speed up the search process. This will help to eliminate regional variations in the speed, format and costs Local Land Charges searches, as well as provide online results instantly.

Conveyancers will be able to make decisions by reading information on screen rather than having to open up and interpret PDF documents.