All property data will be held in one place

All property data will be held in one place – and it will become quicker and cheaper to obtain property

20 years ago, I started at my firm as a newly qualified solicitor. At that time, most solicitors did not have computers on their desks and ordering searches involved completing numerous forms, hard copy and in duplicate. You had to check search fees using a directory and send cheques for each one. Let’s just say it was rather time-consuming!  Fast forward 20 years… and we are now used to having a single search platform to order all searches in a few clicks.

So what will we see in the next 20 years?

There is always a drive to make the buying and selling process quicker and more straightforward. We are currently seeing the phased introduction of Council records – the Local Land Charges data – being transferred to the Land Registry. This will take a number of years to implement across the country, but could eventually lead to all property data being held in one place. This would make it quicker (and presumably cheaper) to obtain the sort of information that is required for a property sale and purchase.

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