The Open Property Data Association (OPDA) has released the latest framework for property data standards to make free and shareable data tools available across the property industry.

The association is expecting the new version to help accelerate the digitisation of the property market, making transactions easier and more efficient for homebuyers and property industry professionals.

OPDA said that the current home buying process is "notoriously slow", and this is partly down to less than 1% of property data being in a digital format.

It went on to state that converting data property sources to a digital format is "essential" if there is to be a transition to digital property transactions.

The Property Data Trust Framework is a set of data and governance principles, which includes a common data dictionary, a standardised way to describe property attributes and a methodology for sharing data with trust and provenance attached.

OPDA confirmed the new version is available to the entire property industry and their software providers, from estate agents, through to lawyers, lenders and brokers, without any restrictive, proprietary licences.

The latest version of the toolkit, which comes after several months of collaboration from contributors across the industry, is fully compliant with the National Trading Standards (NTS) material information introduced last year.

OPDA is aiming for open data to be widely adopted and has encouraged the industry to implement the toolkit to its own platforms and API services.

Chief technology officer at Moverly, Ed Molyneux, said: "Open data standards are fundamental to a successful transition to digital property transactions. Now that NTS parts B and C have been published, listing properties becomes significantly easier using digital property data. Most transactions will get underway digitally by default. Ensuring this data is properly provenanced so it can be safely reused is critical, and that’s where the framework really shines."

Chief executive officer at One Mortgage System (OMS), Dale Jannels, added: "It’s great to see the property data trust framework used and available for all. OMS is fully behind the use of the new framework structure which will be of benefit to the end consumer in both speed and ease of buying a property. I’m excited to see how this evolves throughout 2024 and beyond."

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