The Digitalisation of Property Transactions - A New Era?
UK - Lexology
In our digital age we are seeing huge changes in the way property transactions are being conducted.
The HM Land Registry's Digital Street project, for example, aims to explore how new technologies like blockchain can help develop a faster and cheaper land registration process. Earlier this year, it successfully tested a prototype blockchain as a means of speeding up the conveyancing process on a house transaction in Kent. This signals how the whole process of buying and selling properties could end up online in the coming years.
Why Are We Seeing the Digitalisation of Property Transactions?
There are many reasons why new technologies are emerging for use within the real estate sector, including:
Lexology
Legal Practice Management Course (PMT) - Rule 27
South Africa - LSSA
The Legal Practice Council would like to rectify incorrect information regarding the PMT course. In a notice the LPC stated that it has come its attention that some practitioners who opened new practices since 1 November 2018 or who were appointed as partners/directors for the first time as from the same date, have, due to a bona fide administrative oversight, received correspondence from the LPC incorrectly advising them that they have to complete the compulsory practice management training course by either 31 December 2019 or 31 December 2020, depending on the date when the practitioner was issued with their first Fidelity Fund certificate.
Rule 27(1) provides that every legal practitioner who is obliged in terms of Section 84(1) to be in possession of a Fidelity Fund certificate must, within a period of one year after the date on which the legal practitioner was required for the first time to be in possession of a Fidelity Fund certificate, complete a legal practice management training course approved by the Council. This relates only to practitioners who practise as attorneys.
LSSA
Upswing nearly in sight for property market
South Africa - Property360
Good news for real estate industry as country veers from technical recession because of 3.1% economic growth
The growth of South Africa’s economy in the second quarter of 2019 is “excellent news” for the country’s real estate market, says BetterBond chief executive Carl Coetzee.
This is because the property market is dependent on positive sentiment, which is likely to begin bubbling following the announcement the economy grew by 3.1% and steered the country from a technical recession.
South Africa now also has a better chance of avoiding a sovereign debt rating downgrade when Moody’s reviews the economy in November, Coetzee says. Moody’s is the only one of the top three agencies to still award the country an investment-grade rating.
Property360
Property Insights
South Africa - FNB
The FNB Property Broker Survey – Perceived Commercial Property Market Activity, along with Broker Satisfaction, slides weaker.
The 3rd Quarter 2019 FNB Commercial Property Broker Survey sees all 3 major commercial property sectors, i.e. Office, Industrial and Retail, showing declines in perceived market activity levels.
In the 3rd quarter of 2019, the percentage of respondents experiencing conditions as satisfactory declined at a more rapid rate than the prior quarter, from 64% in the 2nd quarter to 49%.
When asking brokers for their ratings of market activity levels on a scale of 1 to 10, we still see that the group of respondents is most upbeat (or least pessimistic perhaps) about the Industrial and Warehouse Property Market. However, Industrial Property’s 3rd quarter activity rating did decline noticeably, recording 5.25, down from 6.03 in the prior quarter’s survey. By comparison, the Retail Property Activity Rating was noticeably lower at 4.51 in the 3rd quarter, down from the prior quarter’s 5.25, while the Office Property Market also declined from 5.05 in the 2nd quarter to a lowly 4.62 in the 3rd quarter survey.
Our ‘‘Indices for Perceived Change in Market Activity over the Past 6 Months’’ were all negative (i.e. perceived activity declines on an aggregated basis) in the 3rd quarter survey. The market with the highest index reading was Office, although this was nevertheless still a weak reading of -3.03. The Industrial and Warehouse Sector Index reading was a negative of -10, implying that the percentage of respondents perceiving a decrease in activity in this sector exceeded those perceiving an increase by 10 percentage points. The Retail Market returned the weakest reading of the 3, a negative -17.77.
Property Insights Q3 2019
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