We’re not the first to say it: the home buying process is complex, riddled with paperwork, inefficient and takes a long time.

Part of the cause is that estate agents find themselves bogged down by manual processes, including identity checks, Anti-Money Laundering (AML) compliance, contract management, and adherence to various regulations like GDPR and National Trading Standards. These tasks, essential yet time-consuming, can hamper property transactions’ overall efficiency, particularly when done manually.

The COVID years (I guess that’s what we call it now) worked wonders to drive agents, consumers and other property professionals to adopt more tech, bringing the process online and realising some efficiencies, such as the speed at which it’s now possible for estate agents to ID a seller and have a comprehensive report on the fraud risk moments later.

BUT whilst progress has been made, it’s highlighted a fundamental flaw with many of the existing solutions agents are using.

They don’t work well together in a process.

A modern agent will use contract signing software, ID software, and online forms to gather material information and other tools to check EPCs and order title documents. Juggling these independent systems sucks in hours of their time and leaves their clients (the buyers and sellers) having to navigate an incoherent process. It’s a time drain and an underwhelming experience.

Now, the larger agents already know this and have invested in building their own platforms to help join up the process and improve their client experience, but the smaller independent agents, which make up the majority of the market, are left with few solutions that can help.

Enter Kotini

A platform that helps ambitious, growing estate agencies automate their onboarding and compliance, joining the process together for them and their clients. Kotini covers everything from collecting privacy consents, getting contracts signed, running ID and anti-money laundering checks and gathering upfront material property information in a single branded experience for the estate agent.

And the agents using Kotini are already getting results:

• They have more time to find their next client
• They have a market-leading customer experience
• They have peace of mind over their compliance
• They have fewer systems to juggle

Since going live, Kotini has supported over 500 property transactions and has an exciting future ahead of them. They’ve built their business on top of the Property Data Trust Framework, which, in short, means the hundreds of proprietary data points they’re gathering for estate agents can be leveraged with mortgage brokers, conveyancers and other stakeholders in the property transaction to reduce duplication and create even more efficiency beyond estate agency.

Kotini is a right place, right time innovation that aligns perfectly with the Digital Property Market Steering Groups (of which HM Land Registry is a member) first two objectives announced in Jan:

1. No surprises and no delays: upfront information means there are no surprises after the buying decision and no waiting for searches
2. Transparency and innovation: sharing information using an open protocol allows everyone to see what is happening in a transaction and support innovative new consumer-friendly digital services

Find out more about Kotini in their startup profile.