10054819Transforming property due diligence for conveyancers through the game-changing use of Natural Language Processing and workflow automationClosedCollaborative R&DInnovate UKUnderpinning each of the residential property transactions that occur in England and Wales each year is conveyancing, the legal process of buying and selling property. At the core of the conveyancing process are additional enquiries ("Enquiries"). Enquiries involve the exchange of unstructured, often complex questions and answers between conveyancers and form the basis of legal due diligence on the sale property, supporting the important principle of 'caveat emptor' (buyer beware). Typical examples include requesting evidence of planning permission for extensions, copies of certificates for installations such as boilers, windows, etc and property title documents. Market polling (Today's Conveyancer, May-22) shows three-quarters of conveyancers have seen Enquiries volume increase (50% significantly) whilst other analysis (Landmark, April-22) shows time taken to resolve Enquiries raised has more than doubled. Given the importance and impact on the conveyancing process - which faces key challenges of increasingly long transaction lengths, a persistent high fall-through rate and low client satisfaction rates exacerbated by capacity issues - a radical, novel approach is required to dealing with Enquiries. Collaborative Conveyancing is developing a new and unique product that combines the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI), specifically Natural Language Processing (NLP), with AI-powered workflow automation and decisioning to identify and classify Enquiries and generate responses in an standardised and automated way. To achieve this, Collaborative Conveyancing is working in collaboration with the Hartree Centre, part of the Science and Technology Facilities Council. This game-changing innovation displaces the existing process for conveyancers to reduce complexity and improve efficiency, visibility and communication for all involved. By tackling Enquiries, without changing user behaviours, our transformative approach makes the conveyancing process less admin-intensive, quicker and more accurate, crucially assisting in a faster, more frictionless property transaction.