RLBA WINS GHFA GRANT TO EXPLORE HOW LOGBOOK CAN SUPPORT RETROFIT FOR THE RENTAL SECTOR

The Residential Logbook Association (RLBA) is part of a consortium that has been awarded a Government grant via the Green Homes Finance Accelerator (GHFA) to explore how digital property logbooks can help drive the Retrofit of the 5M rented homes in the UK.

The winning consortium includes the Energy Savings Trust (EST) who provide energy advice; Trustmark, who certify many of the Retrofit assessors and installers in the UK; and the Coventry Building Society, who will represent the many lenders in the rental market.

The government have proposed that by December 2028, all existing privately rented properties will need an EPC rating of “C” or above. All new tenancies would need an EPC rating of "C"  by approx. 2026-2028 on current timescales.  The onus on Landlords is to begin preparing the project work to ensure their properties comply.

The consortium’s project will look at ways of using Digital Property Logbooks to make this process, and the financing of the work, simpler and faster for the Rental industry.  In particular, it will focus on the data that is created during the Retrofit process. It will test innovative ways for Logbooks to share data widely during Retrofit, including with banks, and for it to be stored usefully once the process is over.  The project team believe the free exchange of data will enable lenders to provide more innovative, long term financing solutions to landlords.

A key role for the RLBA will be cross-pollinating innovations with work in other parts of the property industry, including the Home Buying & Selling Group (HBSG) and The Lettings Industry Council (TLIC).  Nigel Walley of the RLBA said “We see the RLBA’s role as making the connections between the various strands of work going on in Retrofit, Buying & Selling and Rental.  Logbooks sit in the middle between all of them”

A key HBSG initiative that will be included is the Property Data Trust Framework (PDTF) standards which are intended to ensure property data can be exchanged in a trusted and verified format.  Nigel Walley said “Our member logbooks are on a path to being PDTF compliant and this will help us bring the PDTF into the Retrofit and Surveying sectors.”

The first part of the project will report back in September with further project stages subject to another round of tendering.

End

27 March 2023 - The Residential Logbook Association (RLBA) has launched the first iteration of its ‘Register of Property Logbooks’ providing the conveyancing world with direct access to a verified record of logbooks for UK addresses.

One of the RLBA’s commitments to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUCH) in 2019 was that its self-regulatory process would include a Register of Logbooks accessible via estate agent and conveyancer systems. This would enable the swift exchange of data between vendor logbooks and the buying and selling community, as well as supporting the fight against property fraud.  Version 1.0 of the Register launched this week.

The RLBA Register contains a list of ‘verified’ logbooks.  In this context ‘verified’ means the core data structure conforms to the RLBA specification and the identity of the user and their ownership of the property has been confirmed.  Currently, the Register only lists logbooks that have been through the conveyancing process, and which have been listed directly by conveyancers. However, a future release will include logbooks set up outside the buying and selling process, which includes digital ID verification tools in its account set up.

RLBA Head of Policy, Simon Lumb, said: “Ensuring logbooks can show verified ID and property ownership is a key component of the Register, hence the current limit to conveyancer listed logbooks.   As the digital mechanisms for linking personal ID to property ID are confirmed we will widen the criteria for listing.”

An immediate use will be supporting the recent update to the Buying and Selling Property Information (BASPI) form, which requires vendors to confirm if a property logbook is available.  The Register will automatically complete the relevant fields for digital versions of the BASPI. Beth Rudolf, Director of Delivery at the Conveyancing Association said “The CA has always been supportive of Property Logbooks, as long as its clear there is only one per property. The RLBA Register enables us to ensure that digitally.” 

The RLBA Register can show if an address has a verified logbook, provide the supplier name and flag if the logbook holds any of the data products that an agency or conveyancer might want to download. These include Property Packs, Lettings MOTs or specific documentation like a Leaseholder Deed of Certificate, which have all been included in the RLBA data standards.   The next Register upgrade in Q3 of 2023 will enable the direct download of the data and documents from these data products, from a logbook to the estate agent or law firm’s CRM system, via the RLBA data hub.

Beth Rudolf said “Seeing the beginning of the Register of Property Logbooks is an exciting moment as it will eventually enable logbooks to act as a digital version of the paper deeds packets. These previously saved a huge amount of time as they collated all the important information in one place. To have that available digitally and able to be pulled into case management software will be the icing on the cake.”

The current Register API has been opened up to a first wave of proptech apps, including Moverley and adoor who have incorporated the BASPI into their systems and will use the link to the Register to auto-fill the BASPI questions relating to logbooks. Ed Molyneux, co-founder Moverly, said: “It's only by working together collaboratively, using digital logbooks to store and pass on information from homeowner to homeowner, that we can hope to achieve a real transformation. It's long overdue!”

The Law Commission have opened a Consultation on Digital Assets.  They state that Digital assets are generally treated as property by market participants. Property and property rights are vital to modern social, economic and legal systems and should be recognised and protected as such.   The consultation requests input from individuals and industry bodies on key aspects of law relating to their industry. 

Overview

The Residential Logbook Association (RLBA) believe that a residential Property Logbook is a clear example of a ‘digital asset’ whose recognition, status and treatment in law have yet to be defined in any meaningful way by the legal industry.   

We have responded to the Law Commission’s Consultation making that case for their recognition in laws relating to property, assets and transactions.   However, we have framed the call for Property Logbook recognition within a call to consider the wider context for ‘digital assets’.  

We make the case that there is an ‘immediate’ problem to be resolved in residential property law around digital assets made up of data, online services, apps and logbooks;  and a ‘future’ challenge around blockchain and crypto-based issues for which we can begin to layout principles.   

We have urged the Law Commission not to focus on the second of these issues (which are more high profile) before solving the first (which have immediate commercial implications..

This document summarises the RLBA response to both sets of issues raised in our submission and, at the end, we have provided the full text of our submission as entered on the Law Commission website.  

See the RLBA Submission on the next page.

The RLBA Summary Response

The Residential Logbook Association recognises that the concept of digital assets has implications for a wide range of industries and processes.    Our focus is specifically on their recognition and use in connection with residential property and, in particular, transfer of ownership during residential property transactions. 

The RLBA believes that recognition of digital assets is a key factor in the wider digitisation of the property industry.  This issue is an outcome of the wider digitisation in the way we run our homes and interact with the services providers around us. It is poorly reflected in current property law and the RLBA believe it requires urgent attention within the wider changes occurring within conveyancing.    

There is an emphasis in the Law Commission’s overview briefing on blockchain based concepts and technologies (cryptoassets, smart contracts, distributed ledger technology etc). For residential property these are ‘future’ concepts and we comment on their implication for residential property markets in the second part of our submission. However, the term ‘digital assets’ has a wider and more ‘immediate’ implication for residential property and property transactions that we believe need urgent action.  We urge the Law Commission to focus on the immediate before addressing future issues.

The RLBA defines the term ‘digital assets’ as referring to a wide range of online accounts, passcodes, and apps that create a fog of connected data around our homes. Ownership of these assets is not well defined and this problem becomes most obvious now when a home gets sold.   The RLBA breaks down this mess of digital activity into at least three types of digital ‘asset’ that need to be considered when buying or selling a home:

• Online accounts for services (eg utilities) and the data they hold against a specific property

• Online accounts attached to fixed hardware (eg central heating apps and CCTV apps) which need to be passed on at sale

• Data and digital documentation held in long-term records (eg residential property logbooks) which need to be recognised.

We have made the case that the above systems, accounts and records need to be recognised in law as ‘digital assets’ attached to ‘physical asset’ of a home.  They may need to be considered as part of a property’s ‘fixtures and fittings’, with principles and processes established to ensure their transfer to new owners when the ownership of the physical asset is also transferred.  Our submission states:

“The law needs to evolve to both recognise the existence of digital assets and the principle that they can be attached to a property asset”.

We also make the case that any organisation creating data on behalf of a property should not be viewed as the ‘owner’ of that data, but as an agent for the property owner with the data recognised as belonging to the main property asset.  Our submission states:

“Digital assets created by an owner, or by a third party organisation for or about a property and its performance should accrue in law to that property’s asset base”

With a specific reference to the Law Commissions question on the nature of ‘possession’ around digital assets the RLBA make the case that ‘ownership’ needs to be defined as:

‘having a sole right to access, manage and transfer the asset, but this right might be mediated by a third party’

 ‘possession’ needs to be defined as:

 ‘having control of the means to access, manage and transfer the asset’.

We offered the following examples to differentiate between ‘ownership’ and ‘possession’ of a digital asset as it impacts Residential property:

Ownership - The data held by a utility on the energy performance of a home may be described as being ‘owned by the homeowner’ as part of their wider ownership of the property asset.  Ownership implies the right to dictate how the data is stored and used.  But the data is not ‘possessed by them’ as they have no direct control over where and how it is stored, and have no rights to move, delete or transfer that data.

Possession - The data and/or documentation held by a  homeowner in Property Logbook may be described as being both ‘owned by the homeowner’ as part of their wider ownership of the property asset, but also ‘possessed by them’ as they have direct control over where and how it is stored, and have rights to move, delete* or transfer that data. (*Note: some data in Property Logbooks is immutable so cannot be deleted).

Very specifically, these concepts impact residential property in two ways.  A homeowner selling their property needs to be able to transfer both kinds of data to a new owner on completion.  More importantly, 

“the act of transferring control should be an explicit and recognised step in the conveyancing process - as outlined in the Law Society’s Conveyancing Quality Scheme (CQS).”

The RLBA would welcome debate on all the above points of immediate concern and will be participating in any industry wide discussion of the points.  We also recognise there is need to debate the implications of future changes, and the use of blockchain based concepts in residential property. 

Comment On Blockchain Based Digital Assets

This section offers the RLBA’s comment on various aspects of the potential use of blockchain technology in residential property transactions, with a particular focus on Distributed Ledger, Smart Contract and Tokenisation.

Distributed Ledger

The RLBA recognises that, in societies with very low trust in institutions, and where no Land Registry functions exist, then it is possible to imagine the advent of disintermediated blockchain-based property registers that utilise the ‘Distributed Ledger’ capability to create trust.  However the UK is not one of those markets, and we expect any blockchain based property register to be introduced and managed by the Land Registry. 

Smart Contracts

While we recognise that ‘Smart Contract’ systems, based on blockchain protocols may play a part in enabling transactions to take place in the future, we recognise there is currently no overarching or dominant protocol that links all blockchain protocols and that a series of incompatible Smart Contract systems is a likely outcome in the short term.   We therefore anticipate Smart Contracts for residential property transactions will have to take place either 

- in systems where both parties recognise the same protocol and agree use of the system, (eg in auction systems, or conveyancer CRMs)...or

- in a standard UK system run by a single trusted agent (most likely the Land Registry).

In the second of these concepts, it is possible to envisage the Land Registry Smart Contracts becoming recognised as 'digital deeds'.  However, in both systems the Smart Contract (or ‘digital deed’) would be ownable but not possessable due to the nature of Smart Contract systems.  

The RLBA would encourage development of rules for these systems in which the homeowner can realise the concept of ‘ownership’ through a range of access routes.   We anticipate Property Logbooks adding functions by which Smart Contracts can be recorded and accessed.  The ‘ownership’ right to a Smart Contract must be realisable through third party systems; be attachable to another digital asset (ie Logbook)  and transferable on sale of the underlying property.

Tokenisation

However, of greater concern is the potential for tokenisation of residential property ownership, and specifically, how those tokens may be recognised in law and used in digital systems as proof of ownership of a residential property.  

The RLBA recognises that blockchain based tokens can be both ‘owned’ and ‘possessed’.  If the residential property market were to adopt a tokenised system (where property ownership is enshrined in a form of crypto token supported by smart contracts) then a homeowner would, by definition, be deemed to own the token and which represented ownership of the underlying physical and digital assets.   In the UK we would advocate that this be within a system built and managed by the Land Registry.

We also recognise that a homeowner would be able to ‘possess’ the token with the correct property related wallet software.  We anticipate Property Logbooks developing a residential token ‘wallet’ (analogous to a bitcoin wallet) but it would need to be interoperable with a token issuing system which is, once again, created and managed by Land Registry.

While possession of a property token may technically mean that confirmation or personal identity would not be required for each transaction, we anticipate that KYC/AML checks would would not be superseded, but might be sought once at the point where people sign up to use the blockchain system. 

End.

The RLBA Met With Housing Minister Christopher Pincher MP To Widen The Debate About Property Logbooks Across The Property Lifecycle

The RLBA held a meeting with Minister for Housing Christopher Pincher MP on Tuesday  to find out more about the RLBA’s 8X Projects and also the work that the RLBA and its members are doing across the whole lifecycle of acquiring and running a home.  

The RLBA Members were particularly keen for him to understand that Residential Property Logbooks are a live product in the UK market, and we are plotting our route from approx 250k users to 25M. 

The RLBA’s 8X Projects are a series of trials aimed at calculating the potential impact of freely available, machine readable data at four key stages of the home buying & selling process. Working with a group of partner companies, the RLBA are investigating how Property Logbooks can help drive the sales process down to under 8 weeks from offer to completion.

The Minister recognised that”Property Logbooks can be a ‘powerful tool’ in speeding up home buying & selling” and that “the work the RLBA was doing to standardise and codify their use was instrumental in achieving scale for what is a fundamentally new class of service”.   Revealing his background in IT, the Minister challenged RLBA members on plan for data security, scale and roll-out capability.

The Minister was keen to explore  the wider potential for Property Logbooks to support innovation across the whole home ownership lifecycle.  In particular, how Logbooks can support a range of Govt. objectives around housing and housing data – particularly the wider adoption of the UPRN.   We highlighted the work being done around Local Government data and services, as well as the support that RLBA members are giving to UK mortgage world around reporting for Green Finance loans and the  roll-out of Retrofit Plans.  

We emphasised that Logbooks were putting homeowners and residents at the heart of the digital revolution around residential  property data.  “The ‘citizen-centric’ approach offered by Property Logbooks  gives  homeowners a seat at the table when digital innovation is being planned” 

This is the RLBA's Response to the Law Commision's 14th Programme of Law Reform Consultation.

Overview

The RLBA have responded to the Law Commission’s Consultation on its 14th Programme of Law Reform.   We fully support the recommendations put forward by the Conveyancing association (CA) with regard to the digitisation of the property transaction process and our submissions echoes their requests in those areas.    Our submission makes the point that:

“We need laws that enable buyers to simply and quickly understand the quality, tenure and legal requirements around a property before they make an offer.”

We also support the principle that the law has to recognise the potential of new digital technology in effecting fast transactions to take place and our submission makes the point:

“We need the law to support the rapid exchange of property that is now possible in end-to-end digital systems.“

We make the point that dematerialising of deeds documents with the Land Registration Act 2002 has provided many benefits, but has robbed conveyancers of a historic view, extending the investigative work they need to undertake.  We have made the case that: 

“The Land Registry should issue ‘digital deeds’ summarising all past transactions as an extensible open data feed to conveyancer systems, property logbook and digital ‘sellers packs’.”

We have also raised the specific issue of the recognition of digital assets within property law.  This issue is an outcome of the wider digitisation in the way we run our homes and interact with the services providers around us. It is poorly reflected in current property law and the RLBA believe it requires urgent attention within the wider changes occurring within conveyancing.   

The term ‘digital assets’ refers to the online accounts, passcodes, and apps that create a fog of connected data around our homes. Ownership of this data is not well defined and this problem becomes most obvious now when a home gets sold.   

The RLBA breaks down this mess of digital activity into at least three types of digital ‘asset’ that need to be considered when buying or selling a home

• Online accounts for services (eg utilities and their data)

• Online accounts attached to fixed hardware (eg central heating and CCTV apps)

• Data in long-term records (eg residential property logbooks).

We have made the case that ‘digital assets’ need to be recognised as part of a property’s ‘fixtures and fittings’, with principles and processes established to ensure their transfer to new owners when the ownership of the physical asset is also transferred.  Our submission states:

“The law needs to evolve to both recognise the existence of digital assets and the principle that they can be attached to a property asset”.

The RLBA would welcome debate on all the above points and will be participating in any industry wide discussion of the points.

Click here to download the full submission:

The tech innovators shaking up the housing market:

By Carole Lewis

The buying and selling process needs an overhaul and technology has a key role to play. Here we have gathered a selection of innovations — often born of the frustrations of those caught in the system — that aim to change the way the market works.

Chimni

A free property logbook in which homeowners can store all key documents, from title deeds to energy performance certificates, whether they are selling, letting or not. There are sections in which to store all the information on DIY or building projects, as well as a space for compiling your home’s history (chimni.com).

Coadjute

A secure blockchain network that connects estate agents, conveyancers, mortgage brokers and lenders via their existing software systems. The system allows the parties to track events, message each other securely and exchange documents (coadjute.com).

Gazeal

A platform aimed primarily at estate agents that brings together buyers, sellers and property professionals. It starts with a buyer information pack containing all the key documents and information; it is filled out by the seller when the property is put on the market and is transferred to the conveyancers when a deal is struck. The system has a reservation agreement component should sellers want to make the offer binding (gazeal.co.uk).

National Deeds Depository

Key paperwork is sent from conveyancers to the depository, where they are scanned and stored in a property logbook. The logbook can be accessed, via secure logins, by homeowners, conveyancers and mortgage brokers in order to share documents (thedeedsdepository.com).

Pip

Property Information Products (Pip) has created Pip Vault, which has digital logbooks in which property documents can be stored. Seller information is uploaded by estate agents when a property is marketed; the documents can then be viewed by potential buyers and their conveyancing solicitor when a deal is struck (pipreport.co.uk).

Spaciable

A property portal combined with a logbook for those buying, selling, renting, building or managing new-build properties. Added features include an online library of appliance manuals, warrant documents and energy certificates, and a digital address book (home.spaciable.com).

Sprift

Sprift searches for and collates information such as title plans, floor plans, flood risk, council tax and energy certificates, for landlords, developers, and estate and lettings agents. The documents can then be shared with buyers, sellers, tenants and conveyancers via a central dashboard (sprift.com).

Twindig

A combination of property logbook and property tracker for homeowners. Claim your home on the system (mark whether you are selling, thinking of selling or settled) and upload your documents for safekeeping. Follow homes that you might be interested in buying if they came on the market and track their estimated price fluctuations (twindig.com).

Yourkeys

Aimed at housebuilders, this is a platform that tracks sales from reservation to completion for developers and buyers. The system links to a network of conveyancers, mortgage brokers and (shortly) estate agents to enable the sharing of documents during the sale (yourkeys.com).

Have we missed someone? If you would like to recommend a property market disruptor then get in touch at carol.lewis@thetimes.co.uk

RLBA Responds to the Geovation Commission 'Housing Landscape Report'

The Geospatial Commission recently commissioned Newgate Research to survey the UK housing landscape and report on the current and potential use of geospatial data through all stages of the housing lifecycle. The report was issued to industry and representative bodies, who were asked to comment and and respond. Below is the RLBA response:

We are responding to your recent request for feedback on the ‘Phase 1 Housing Landscape’ report produced for the Geospatial Commission by Newgate Research. The comments below are the response of the Residential Logbook Association which, as you will know, represents the interests of suppliers and users of data logbooks for residential property owners.

1.   Firstly, we would flag up that, in a whole report about ‘housing’ there is no mention of ‘homeowners’ or ‘occupiers of homes’ at any point or any reflection on their needs/interests in geospatial data about their home. Further, we also note that you haven’t named any consumer or homeowner organisations in the list of completed and planned interviewees (these might have included Homeowners Alliance, Which etc). This means that the report assumes that geospatial data around homes is merely a B2B area of interest and that, even in our increasingly digital world, homeowners won’t seek or be given access to geospatial data. You will be aware that the emergence of the property logbook industry disproves that position. 

2. The way that the report is structured reinforces this omission. The report identifies five stages to ‘the planning and housing journey’. These cover all the major planning and development stages leading up to the completion of a property. But the report has nothing beyond that point from the homebuyers point of view. This may include when homeowners are considering property to buy, after they have moved in or when they are planning to sell on in the future. There is therefore, no assumption that the homeowner may want any access to Geospatial data or related functionality before or during their occupation of a home. The work of the logbook providers in the RLBA takes a different view. We would also point to the work of the Law Society and Conveyancing Association on ‘upfront data’ which is explicitly looking to put homeowners in control of data on their home before and during the sales process.

3.  We want to flag up that, in Commercial Property, there is a clear 6th stage in all discussion about tech and data - the Operate & Maintain (O&M) stage of a building. In this stage the owner (or their FM company) is increasingly given access to geospatial data, construction data etc as part of function running their property. As homeowners, and all the service organisations that support them, become increasingly digitally literate, we increasingly have to think about the 6th Stage in residential property – when properties are occupied. Perhaps in Residential we could define a ‘Residential O&M’ stage as ‘Occupy & Maintain’ to help us think about what data could and should be available to homeowners and how they might use it.

4.   We believe that the comments above support the aims of various arms of government, who are exhorting the homeowner to keep better digital records through the life of their property (eg Dame Hackitt’s ‘Golden Thread). Government is pushing industry sectors like ‘Home Buying & Selling’, ‘Lettings & Rental’, ‘Planning & Local Gov’, ‘Retrofit’ etc to engage digitally with the homeowner through radically upgraded processes and practices. Each of these areas assumes that the homeowner will have access and control of an increasing amount of the data on their homes and local area. The residential logbook phenomenon reflects this.

5.   Finally, we note that, even though a group of logbook companies met with the Geospatial Commission earlier in the year to discuss these issues, the report completely ignores the idea of a property logbook, or even Dame Hackitt’s ‘Golden thread’ of property data. It doesn’t even mention logbooks or even the HBSG in the ‘MHCLG-led initiatives’ section.

We recognise that some of these ideas our members are working on are currently conceptual, or only now being brought to market. But your report needs to focus on the Residential Housing market in front of us, not the one in the rear view mirror. Homeowner access to and use of geospatial data is a significant new trend that needs to be included. The RLBA would be happy to engage with you on the next stage of the report to build on this.

Nigel Walley

Chair – Residential Logbook Association