What is the Property Data Trust Framework?
The Property Data Trust Framework (PDTF) is a standardised set of data and governance principles developed by a diverse 150-strong team of HBSG members, including among many others Steve Rad, the founder of Inventory Base.
Under the guidance of Beth Rudolf, Maria Harris and other notable luminaries in the property, legal and finance sectors, the new framework has been developed to incorporate the existing BASPI dataset, while also including the Title Deed, Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) and Property Searches data.
In technical terms, it’s an open-source repository of JSON schemas, a standard file type for storing and transmitting data in a readable format. It’s also platform agnostic, meaning that it doesn’t need specific software to use it.
Requiring separate software that runs on individual licenses or needs additional training has been a major sticking point during previous attempts to standardise property data, HBSG has removed the need for a new ecosystem, enabling it to plug into existing systems with little-to-no friction.
Why do we need the Property Data Trust Framework?
With the time to exchange skyrocketing and fall throughs an ever-present concern, the Property Data Trust Framework comes along at a time when certainty is sorely needed. Against the backdrop of tumultuous market conditions, the cost of living crisis, and the emergence from a global pandemic, time is of the essence.
What the PDTF does is it puts the buyers and the sellers at the centre of the transaction journey, ushering in a renewed sense of control in a process that has typically made them feel helpless as they wait up to 3 months, and in some cases even longer, to exchange.
The information contained within the PDTF can be compiled early on in the process and shared with other stakeholders involved in the buying and selling process, including conveyancers, lenders and more. It enables the rapid exchange of information, aiming to cut the buying and selling process significantly.
The Principles of the Property Data Trust Framework
It’s important to remind ourselves of the principles behind the Property Data Trust Framework so we can better understand the need for it, as well as how it can address the challenges faced throughout the property transaction journey. The HBSG has identified four main principles, as follows:
Consumer-centric
This is about putting the consumer, in this case, the buyer or seller, in control of their own data. At the same time, it allows for some level of accessibility and transparency, but only when it is expressly permitted by the consumer.
Built on open standards
If it requires a proprietary piece of software that comes with all the associated costs and resources that entails, it would be an uphill struggle to get it adopted across the industry. Instead, to remove the barriers to entry, there will be tools and software compliant with the framework that are already in daily use.
Trusted
Being a single source of truth, the material and information contained within the framework must be trustworthy itself. To achieve this, HBSG will enable access to the provenance of the data, so stakeholders are assured that it is accurate, up-to-date and uncompromised.
Extensible
Currently, the framework takes into account what has been set out above, but it has been developed in a way that enables the straightforward evolution of standards, covering a broader spectrum of property data use cases.
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