The biggest revolution of the conveyancing system in Ireland since the creation of the State has begun with the start of the implementation phase of the Irish Law Society’s “eConveyancing project”.
eConveyancing will make all interactions between solicitors, lenders and the Property Registration Authority (PRA) entirely electronic for the first time and will greatly reduce transaction times and costs while increasing security and transparency.
Home-buyers will see transaction times reduced to as little as five working days once the system is up and running.
eConveyancing will operate via a secure central hub that will see solicitors, lenders and the PRA share information in real time. Once the solicitors for both a buyer and a seller are ready to complete a transaction, the closing of the property will happen instantly. The current large time lag between completion and the registration of ownership will be removed and all funds will move via electronic funds transfer.
Irish Law Society Director General Ken Murphy said, “We want to enable a person who agrees to buy a property on a Monday morning to be the registered owner by the following Friday. The costs of the conveyancing process should also reduce while opportunities for fraud or errors are virtually eliminated.”
“We have been active supporters of this project since it was first proposed by the Law Reform Commission in 2006. In May 2014 the Government made eConveyancing a key measure of Construction 2020.”
He went on to say that “The Law Society is now focused on building the team to make eConveyancing a reality. We are working with a number of stakeholders including the Banking and Payments Federation Ireland (BPFI) and the PRA. The current paper-based system simply cannot deal with the demands of the modern property market. Currently the conveyancing system is almost entirely paper-based – it is slow, inefficient and costly. Irish home-buyers have changed. They are mobile. They demand transparency.”
– Holland Condon Solicitors Kilkenny
