Conveyancers construct e-project

Property: National Land Information Service to tap into electronic registration

The parties involved in the electronic search process for conveyancers are gearing themselves up to branch out into electronic registration of title and fund transfer, it emerged last week.

Searches are currently channelled through three licence-holders - MacDonald Dettwiler, which also runs the hub in a consortium that includes the Law Society, Searchflow, and TM - using the National Land Information Service (NLIS) infrastructure.Searchflow chief executive Mark Riddick said NLIS is the first stage of electronic processing, and that the second stage will be to extend the re-engineering of the search process to e-conveyancing as a whole.

The NLIS infrastructure will be particularly suited to electronic registration and transfer of funds, he added.'HM Land Registry is demonstrating a model around the country, and expectations are that it will be built by private enterprise under public/private partnership,' Mr Riddick explained.

'The technical infrastructure which is NLIS seems entirely appropriate as the bedrock upon which this vision can be realised, and NLIS Searchflow, in common with the other channels, will inevitably bid under the public/private partnership procurement process.'It has also been reported that firms undertaking searches electronically have witnessed drastic reductions in the amount of time taken up.

In one case, a firm estimated that it would take five people one week to conduct searches on a portfolio of 700 properties.

Using NLIS, one person completed the job in 30 hours.Mr Riddick said the government and industry have accepted that e-conveyancing is the way forward, with 360 out of 400 local authorities now using the technology.

He urged solicitors to do the same.

'According to the Land Registration Bill, in ten years' time there will be no such thing as non-electronic conveyancing,' he said.

Paula Rohan