If the NHS Can Go Digital, Why Is Real Estate Lagging Behind?

The Law Commission of England and Wales has announced that electronic legal documents should be considered just as valid as wet signatures for UK property. The news comes amidst The Department of Health moving forward with abolishing the need for doctors’ signatures for paper prescriptions. The Health Secretary, Matt Hancock, said this will improve the delivery of care under the NHS, save time for patients and make the lives of hardworking staff members easier. When You Move is lobbying for similar changes in the property sector given the average six-week delay paper trails and majority offline processing makes to property transactions.

The property industry still insists on manual wet signatures as a vital element of legal transactions. When You Move argues that this further slows what is traditionally a cumbersome and slow-moving conveyancing process of 82 steps. Considering the waiting time for documents to be signed by all parties involved, as well as the time taken to scan each document and then shred – the process needs to be more streamlined.

Simon Bath, CEO of When You Move on the need for digitalisation in the property industry: “If the health and pharmaceutical sectors are welcoming digitalisation into the arena as a way of delivering an effective service, there is no reason why the property sector should not do the same. Given the medial arena is making clear steps to revolutionise an industry steeped in hundreds of years of archaic processes, in addition to the acutely sensitive information handled, the case for the property sector following suit is unequivocally the correct course of action.  Property transactions have too long wallowed in unneeded red-tape that stagnates vital momentum in the industry, the technology is already here, we just need to activate it in a relevant manner”

(Source: When You Move)