Christian Lister, Operations Director for X-Press Legal Services has been appointed to the Digital Property Market Steering Group (DPMSG).
The DPMSG brings together a cross-sector group of government and industry leaders committed to making the property market faster, more transparent and more secure. It will be the primary delivery vehicle for the Government’s Home Buying and Selling Roadmap, published on 19 June.
X-Press’ appointment to the DPMSG recognises the pivotal role the business has played in championing sector standards and reform. An executive member of the Council of Property Search Organisations (CoPSO), Christian has dedicated much of his career to driving regulation and quality standards within the industry.
“Conveyancing isn’t broken. The mere fact that the sector completes over a million transactions a year is testament to that. But the system can be improved and we now have a rare opportunity to modernise it in a way that is safe, practical and commercially sustainable,” commented Christian. “The DPMSG will help shape government policy and I am pleased to impart X-Press’ frontline insight into how conveyancing can be digitised responsibly, ensuring data has clear provenance, providers are properly scrutinised and products meet the highest standards of consumer protection.”
Home buyers and sellers are increasingly calling for property transactions to become smoother, faster and more digital, much as other complex services such as banking have successfully migrated online. Digitising conveyancing however, is not simply a matter of transferring existing processes onto a screen, as Christian explains:
“If a reformed conveyancing process is to command confidence from consumers, conveyancers and the wider market, it must include careful consideration of data, access, privacy, security and transparency. That presents a myriad of complexities that the DPMSG will have to resolve. Trust frameworks have an important role to play, but meaningful digital transformation also depends on fair, consistent and reliable access to data. Central to this is the Re-use of Public Sector Information Regulations 2015 (RPSI), which provides an important legal framework for how information held by public-sector bodies can be re-used, including for commercial purposes. It has taken too long for RPSI to be properly recognised within the property data debate, despite sustained lobbying on my part at both European and UK level over a decade ago. I hope to see the RPSI fully utilised within the Home Buying and Selling Roadmap with the strongest possible support from policymakers, so that public-sector information can be opened up and applied for the benefit of the whole market.”
Through its network of offices and close working relationships with conveyancers across the country, X-Press Legal Services has a keen understanding of the operational pressures, market barriers and practical challenges facing the property sector. This insight will be invaluable in advising government and industry partners as they work to deliver meaningful reform.
The first meeting of the reset DMPSG will take on 23 July. Timescales for the Home Buying and Selling Roadmap are to be confirmed.
Further details on the DPMSG and its progress can be found at: https://www.digitalpropertymarket.org/
