Plans in place to revive Chain Matrix

The Forum - which was set up earlier in the year - aims to bring faster certainty to the home-buying process and is scheduled to present a blueprint of its plans to the department of Communities and Local Government (CLG) next month.

These include proposals to bring back the Chain Matrix scheme, the e-conveyancing and online information system which was shelved by the Land Registry in February this year, after increasing delays and negative feedback from the industry.

"The Forum was born out of frustration at the lack of progress with e-conveyancing. There is a degree of frustration and a desire not to spend the next ten years the same way we have spent the last decade," explained Mark Riddick, chairman of the Forum.

Despite being shelved, Riddick believes the Chain Matrix is a "good piece of kit", with good functionality, but feels the Government had overlooked key issues that prevented its success.

He said: "It was not easy to incorporate into conveyancers' work flows. It was delivered as a separate option and most use their own case management systems. This should have been an added function to their own systems because no one wants to key in the same information twice."

Catherine Williams, chief executive at Pisces, backed the E-Homebuying Forum's plans to help revive the Chain Matrix program, but agreed there are issues to be solved first.

Williams said: "It is a really good idea but there are some problems. No one wants to upload two systems. It needs to be integrated with existing case management systems. Also the way data is collated is important and there was a feeling that the Land Registry was not up to looking after the data store. There were also concerns that because it was a Government department it could charge what it liked for it."

"Certainly the conveyancing system needs to improve. In the past everyone was making so much money that people did not care about making things more efficient, that is no longer the case. However, the Land Registry are now starting to make strides to put this right."