Search Acumen Joins Global Legal Blockchain Consortium

Global News

07
Dec
2018

Editor

Search Acumen, the property data insight and technology provider, is delighted to join the Global Legal Blockchain Consortium (GLBC), a body formed of 125 large companies, law firms, software companies, and universities from around the world that have united together to develop standards to govern the use of Blockchain technology in the business of law.

The GLBC is focused on improving data integrity, authenticity, privacy and security for contracts and documents. It will also help facilitate interoperability between large corporate legal departments and law firms – a crucial issue if we are to make this exciting technology fit for purpose.

GLBC members are also dedicated to using distributed ledger technology to improve productivity and finding cost savings in legal departments and law firms, and adding important functionality to legacy systems to extend their useful life.

This partnership underlines Search Acumen’s belief that Blockchain has a big future within the UK property industry.

Andrew Lloyd, Managing Director of Search Acumen and a member of the board of directors of the UK Proptech Association comments: “Conversations about Blockchain are reminiscent of 1989 when the world started to envisage a future with the World Wide Web. While it is impossible to map out the influence it will have on the world, the potentially transformative effect Blockchain could have should not be ignored.

Time efficiency is a priority for all those operating in the property sector, and the verification process and requirement for ‘trust’ in the current system can be a major roadblock and a cause of frustrating delays. Currently, all data, such as planning information, needs human verification by the data source or an intermediary. A decentralised database of information removes the need for this trust, as professionals are presented with real time, ready-verified property or land information at their fingertips.

Property log books, for example, could be created and stored on the Blockchain, containing all the essential current and historic information on a plot of land or building in one, easily accessed and reliable location, cutting out the need for human verification and slashing time lags.

Twenty years ago we wouldn’t even imagine going shopping on the Internet and 20 years from now it is unlikely we will see a real estate lawyer that is not working with Blockchain. Property law professionals need to embrace the benefits of a decentralised database and open the door to the Proptech community to help understand what the future could hold.”