Slow progress on property database threatens moves to put house
searches online
Plans for online property conveyancing may be derailed by growing
concerns over a government project to create a national database of
land and property.
The National Land and Property Gazetteer (NLPG) is due to launch in
September. It is the foundation for a one-stop shop for online land
and property searches, slashing waiting times for property sales in
England and Wales.
Currently land and property searches can take between three and six
weeks, and poor address and property data costs local government an
estimated £600m.
However, only 10% of local authorities have fully connected to the
NLPG and local government IT organisations fear that the September
deadline for the launch of the service will be too ambitious for
many councils.
The creation of the national database - a joint initiative between
local and central government - is at the heart of the drive to
deliver services online.
Other national initiatives - including legislation from the Lord
Chancellor's Office paving the way for electronic conveyancing -
also depend on having a national database land and property.
Socitm, the local government IT managers' group, said it supported
the principle of the NLPG but attacked the way the project had been
handled. "The first thing we knew was when our chief executives
were written to by the Improvement and Development Agency," said
Robin Carsberg, president of Socitm. "It's a very ambitious
timetable but many well-intentioned authorities may find it hard to
meet."
Estate agent's groups are worried about possible delays to the
service. "We would be very disappointed at any delay in making land
registry available to the public electronically," said Jim Atkins,
president of the National Association of Estate Agents.
A separate agency, the National Land and Property Service (NLS) - a
partnership between the Land Registry and the Improvement and
Development Agency (IDeA) - will be the be the NLPG's first
customer. A handful of private companies will channel information
requests electronically to the relevant agency, such as the Land
Registry or local authority.
But with the imminent public launch of the NLPG fewer than 10% of
more than 400 local authorities in England and Wales are fully
online and linked to the national database with the required
connection.
Local authorities must create their own local land and property
gazetteers before linking to the NLPG. However, local authorities
are under no statutory obligation to do this.
"Local authorities are a long way short of creating a local
gazetteer, from the evidence I have seen," said a supplier in the
addressing market. "There is not much time between now and
September for the national gazetteer to be in place."
Local authority IT managers have broadly welcomed the NLPG project
and predict that it will reduce the amount of duplicated data and
encourage joined-up services between local agencies.
However councils have also expressed concerns about the higher than
expected costs and complexity of creating local property
gazetteers. Councils have dozens of separate address databases
across departments and agencies.
Andrew Larner, head of Information Age Practice and director of the
Local Government Information House (LGIH), a subsidiary of IDeA,
said that local authorities would make significant cost savings by
introducing an address database.
He agreed that there were facing funding challenges in setting up
gazetteers and added that LGIH would make a fund of £200m available
to cover IT and planning costs.
Larner added that the quality of the address database - based on
data standard BS7666 - would be maintained nationally. He said he
was confident that the NLPG would be ready for a public launch in
September.