‘Our tech brings transparency to conveyancing and helps agents get paid quicker’
The Neg talks to a new platform whose founders say will revolutionise the way key players in the moving process communicate between each other.
The highly competitive field of blue-chip corporates, estate agencies and tech start-ups trying to crack the UK’s broken conveyancing system is a crowded one. But one new player says it has the platform to be the winning solution.
Let’s remember who’s already in the game. In April Connells revealed it is striking a partnership with Lloyds and broker LMS just weeks after the Government said it wanted to see the process digitised and improved.
But there’s also Coadjute, ProConvey, MyHomeMove, Fix My Legals, eConveyancing, iamproperty, the PEXA group, and Landmark’s Project 28, to name a few, having a go too.
The problem here is that so many organisations vying to be the next ‘Rightmove’ of conveyancing and sales progression. And sticking points that they all must tackle include integrating successfully with existing conveyancer, surveyor, lender and estate agency CRMs and the property industry’s general resistance to digital.
CentreMove is the latest to offer what it says is a unique solution that will bring transparency to the conveyancing and sales progression process.
The Neg sat down with its three founders to find out if their approach could achieve their digital system’s ambitious aims.
They are backer Wayne Quin (main image, right) and co-founding solicitors Jen and Gordon Sewell, who say the first estate agency to use its platform is being onboarded, and that CentreMove can cope with both standard, easier conveyancing cases as well as more complicated ones including, for example, historic homes with greater complexity.
The also claim that the biggest difference between CentreMove and the others is that theirs is a centralised platform that brings together all the communications that take place during a house move regardless of their source, saying somewhat controversially that phone calls will be eliminated from the process.
“Our platform will give agents more time back to focus on what they do best.”
“Our platform will give agents more time back to focus on what they do best,” says Quinn. “Our philosophy is right and our platform may be still in its early days, but some key functionality is already there including giving everyone access to easily downloadable searches.
“It’s part of the key driver behind our platform – to bring transparency to the process because if a buyer is told buying a property will take six weeks, for example, then usually they’re fine about that – what they hate is everything disappearing into a black hole.”
One surprising aspect of the CentreMove team is that Jen and Gordon Sewell are not conveyancing solicitors by trade but, in both cases, have worked in litigation including dealing with property disputes.
“Like Jen I’ve dealt with professional negligence claims involving conveyancing and that’s helped us tap into the really emotional issues caused by failed or problematical home purchases or sales and the need for a solution,” says Gordon.
Traditional model
Jen adds: “We’ve looked at what the other platforms are doing in this field, and we believe they’re all pivoting around a very traditional model where they try and integrate with conveyancers’ case management systems.
“But that only solves a small part of the issue because then solicitors are still having to address the dialogue between estate agent, seller and buyer via a variety of communication channels.
“So CentreMove brings all this communication onto one platform and becomes a relationship builder between all the parties – including enabling buyer and seller to talk to each other directly, or have the agent do that – but when they’re all less invested in the relationship, that’s when the chain is more likely to break.”
Centre Move users will also crucially be able to see what’s going on elsewhere in the chain, albeit in an anonymised form to protect confidentiality, so they can see what’s holding up the overall process.
“It’s this kind of visibility and transparency that we will bring to conveyancing, and why we’ve got quite a few estate agencies interested in adding their properties to our platform, including the first one getting ready to sign and be onboarded,” says Wayne.
