tm blog

Microsoft have awarded tmgroup Gold Standard partner status. 

Following on from many years as a Silver Standard partner, as well as our recently acquired ISO 27001 certification, this enhanced status further reassures our customers that we are a strong and reliable link in the supply chain. 

Being part of the Microsoft network is recognition of our commitment to creating and delivering innovative customer solutions and services based on Microsoft Technologies, acknowledging tmgroup’s product suite – including tmconvey, tmconnect and mio – as solutions designed and developed against the highest standards. 

Mark Gilbert, Chief Technology Officer (CTO) at tmgroup comments:

“We are delighted to have achieved Gold Standard partner status, and proud of our dedicated team who have demonstrated technical competencies in application and web development, and the management of our data centre infrastructure.

We know how important it is for our customers to not only be able to trust us, but also to be able to reassure their own clients – with confidence – that their data is being handled in a secure environment. A world-recognised standard for excellence certainly helps.”

Our certifications set us apart as a high calibre business partner, proactively addressing the ever-growing threats of cyber crime and data theft by continually investing in our infrastructure and staff. 

For more information about tmgroup’s certifications, please contact your Account Manager. 

We’ve added visibility of Commercial Corporate Ownership Data (CCOD) and Overseas Corporate Ownership Data (OCOD) to tmconvey’s Map Search – available from 7th December 2018.

What is the Commercial & Corporate Ownership Data (CCOD)? 

Commercial and Corporate Ownership Data contains more than 3.3 million title records of freehold and leasehold property in England and Wales.  

CCOD is a subset of the Land register containing data describing registered titles relating to land and property where the registered legal owner is a non-private individual and is not a charity or an overseas company.

What is the Overseas Companies Ownership Data (OCOD)? 

Overseas Companies Ownership Data contains approximately 100,000 title records, which describes titles registered to an overseas company (a company incorporated outside the UK).

How do I access these new datasets on tmconvey’s Map Search?

When CCOD or OCOD information is available against a title, a message will appear on the left-hand side of the screen, letting you know that the title has UK and/or Overseas commercial interests. 

You can then click on the available link, and Map Search will produce a summary of the information held against that title – including title details, proprietor name, company registration number and proprietorship category. 

What else can I do with these new data sets?

• Print or save to PDF

When viewing the summary of CCOD or OCOD, you will also have the option to print and/ or generate a PDF for your records. 

Please be aware, these data sets are regularly updated and so the information is subject to change. As a useful reminder, we’ll automatically add a “generated date” to every statement that is printed or saved to PDF.  

• Link directly through to the Companies House website

In a CCOD record with a company registration number, you’ll notice that the number will be hyperlinked, so you can click directly through to the relevant record on the Companies House website (where available) and do a brief look-up on company information, if you need to. 

Please note, this hyperlink is also carried through to the PDF version of the summary statement, so you can also access Companies House from there.

You can find more information about our latest Map Search enhancements here and here. 

As you may already be aware, on Monday 15th October, Groundsure launched their updated and enhanced ‘Groundsure Screening’ report, as well as their redesigned and enhanced ‘Groundsure Review’ report. 

You can find more information about these changes, alongside pricing and sample reports, below:

Redesigned and enhanced : ‘Groundsure Screening’ report

This report is for lower value less complex commercial property transactions and multi-site portfolios. This enhanced report meets Law Society compliance on contaminated land and flood risk and it covers; 

> Full flood risk assessment and Energy data

> Planning constraints

> Ground stability screening

> Property specific radon assessment

> Transportation screening including Crossrail 1 and 2, HS2 and more

Enhancements include; intelligently filtered data, results in Plain English, intuitive layout and page flow, and fewer pages.

Click here to see a sample report 

NEW Pricing

Groundsure have also made changes to the price of their Screening report;

Redesigned and enhanced : ‘Groundsure Review’ report

Gives expert, bespoke opinion required for all high value property transactions, complex industrial sites and redevelopments.  The report includes;

> Law Society compliant contaminated land and flood risk assessment

> Ground stability and Property specific radon assessment

> Manual review of high detail historical Ordnance Survey mapping in all cases

> Operational environmental risk assessment from Groundsure’s in-house team of environmental experts

> Full Energy & Transportation data (including Crossrail 1 & 2, HS2 and more)

> Planning constraints

Enhancements include; intelligently filtered data with fewer pages - displaying only relevant results, manual assessments in plain English, operational environmental risk assessment, complete HS2 data, Crossrail 2 route and safeguarding, optional planning applications, and intuitive layout and page flow. Each report will now also provide the Consultant's name and contact details for any queries or advice

Click here to see a sample report

NEW Pricing

Groundsure have also made changes to the price of their Review report;   

If you have any questions, please get in touch with your account manager, or get in touch with our friendly helpdesk team on 0800 840 5571, or email helpdesk@tmgroup.co.uk.

HM Land Registry have confirmed that international law firm Bird & Bird LLP were the first law firm to receive a City of London LLC1 result through their new digital Local Land Charges Register. tmgroup are delighted to say that this order was placed via their tmconvey platform – and the result was returned within seconds at precisely 10:14am on Monday 8th October. 

Russell Dellar, partner at international law firm Bird & Bird comments:

“We are delighted to be the first tmconvey customer to receive an LLC1 result from City of London via HM Land Registry’s new digital Local Land Charges Register. At Bird & Bird, we are focused on helping organisations being changed by technology and the digital world. This new innovative platform is certainly something we are keen to promote as well as tmgroup services who we have had a relationship with for many years. The team have never let us down and we look forward to continuing our relationship.”

Paul Albone, Chief Operating Officer at tmgroup comments:

“It’s fantastic to be a part of HM Land Registry’s continuing success with their new digital Local Land Charges register, and we’re pleased to be supporting this new service on tmconvey. tm has a track record of working closely with HMLR on integrated solutions, and we look forward to continuing to work together to deliver further improvements in the future which will help to streamline the conveyancing process even more.”

City of London is the third Local Authority to have their Local Land Charges data digitised, closely following Warwick District Council (11th July) and Liverpool City Council (3rd September), and tmgroup will continue working closely with HM Land Registry throughout the rollout of their new digital Local Land Charges Register.

A further 16 Local Authorities are expected to have their Local Land Charges data digitised across 2018 and 2019, including Stevenage Borough Council, Carlisle City Council, and Peterborough City Council – although exact dates have yet to be announced. 

You can see the full list here.

We’re very proud and excited to announce that mio – our new sales progression and communication tool – has made the Shortlist of The Negotiator Awards 2018 for ‘Supplier of the Year (Technology) – Apps’. 

Organised by the residential property industry trade magazine, The Negotiator, the Awards programme has led the field in the celebration of excellence in the residential property agency sector for 12 years and, with 16 highly experienced judges, only the best agencies and suppliers are announced as the winners. 

The ‘Supplier of the Year (Technology) – Apps’ category recognises companies using innovative technologies to improve Estate Agents’ processes – and we’re delighted to see that mio has earnt a well-deserved place on the list.

Early adopters are already embracing a smarter way to manage home buying 

mio offers Estate Agents a smarter way to manage the home buying process, and empowers them to improve their customer experience by giving homemovers convenient, 24/7 access to updates.

Early adopters – including Allen & Harris, Connells, Brown and Merry, Peter Alan, and Taylors Estate Agents – are already embracing the benefits of mio; including speeding up transactions, reducing fall-through rates, and helping them win more business. 

Don’t just take our word for it…

• Adam Fray, Senior Branch Manager at Taylors Estate Agents in Bradley Stoke: “mio is a really good tool, easy to update, and the reporting and reminders features are particularly useful.”

• Jamie Brown, Branch Manager at Brown and Merry: “It’s great that mio now enables everyone in the team to see how a transaction is progressing – with clear, typed notes and visible milestones.”

• Nicola Brown, New Homes & Area Co-ordinator, Allen & Harris: “I have found it very easy to move over to mio – and find it a lot quicker to bring up reports, and determine which branches I need to be having conversations with that day to help keep things moving forward.”

Jon Horton, Product Director – mio, comments: 

“It’s fantastic to see mio in the running for such a prestigious industry award. It’s a testament to the time and effort our dedicated team have put into creating a sales progression and communication tool that takes sales progression in to the digital age and improves the home buying process.”

Join us at the awards ceremony on 30th November 2018…

The three finalists and winners of each category will be revealed at a grand gala dinner at the sumptuous Grosvenor House Hotel, Park Lane, London on 30th November 2018, where the champagne will certainly be flowing!

Tickets are available here. 

If you have any questions, please get in touch with our friendly mio team, or speak directly to your mio Account Manager.

This week marks the continuing success of HM Land Registry’s new digital Local Land Charges Register, with the digitisation of Liverpool City Council’s LLC data – and tmgroup are pleased to announce that, within minutes of it going live on Monday morning, they had already processed their first orders through tmconvey. 

Since integrating with the new service when it launched back in July, the tm team were primed to support the second phase rollout of Liverpool City Council’s data – and are delighted to announce that 3 orders were processed successfully through tmconvey before 9am on Monday 3rd September, with one of the first orders being placed at 8.22am by Devonshires. 

Sara Snook, Solicitor at Devonshires comments:

“We are delighted to be the first firm to receive an LLC1 search result from Liverpool City Council via the HM Land Registry’s new digital Local Land Charges Register. The result was received in an impressive 38 seconds. This is an exciting new development with the potential to make the process of receiving LLC1 searches practically instantaneous, more consistent and a better experience all round.”

Paul Albone, Chief Operating Officer at tmgroup comments:

“Having supported the initial Local Authority a couple of months ago, I was in no doubt that this would be a seamless transition for tm customers.  As we migrate away from the direct dealings with Liverpool City Council to using the LR Business Gateway, we are able to deliver the LLC search result in a number of seconds from our customers pressing the send button.  We look forward to working with Land Registry over the coming months as they go live with more Local Authorities and also look to extend the value added services through their Business Gateway connection.”

tmgroup will continue to support the rollout of the new digital register 

Liverpool City Council closely follows the digitisation of Warwick District Council’s Local Land Charges data. Liverpool and Warwick are two of around 350 Local Authorities who will have their Local Land Charges (LLC) data digitised across 2018 and beyond. 

tmgroup will continue working closely with HM Land Registry throughout the rollout of their new digital Local Land Charges Register. 

Click here to find out more about how tmgroup are supporting the new digital Local Land Charges Register – and stay tuned for further updates.

Calling all practicing conveyancers, Heads of Residential, Heads of Commercial, and Professional Support Lawyers… The tmpropertyhub Autumn series is just days away, bringing together local property professionals to discuss whether the Government is doing enough to address the Housing Crisis.  

With limited places remaining, please book now to avoid disappointment. 

• Solihull: 11th September: Click here to register 

• Harrow: 11th September: Click here to register 

• Manchester: 12th September: Click here to register 

• Kingston-Upon-Thames: 12th September: Click here to register 

• Nottingham: 13th September: Click here to register 

Facilitated by tmgroup, tmpropertyhub roundtable events are bite-sized, 2-hour sessions that bring representatives from all parties involved in the property transaction together for roundtable table discussions about their local property market – without compromising their busy schedule.

Can’t see a location near you?

A further 6 roundtable discussions will be taking place from 9th October onwards.

Take a look:  

• Leeds : 9th October : Click here to register

• Bristol : 9th October : Click here to register

• Liverpool : 10th October : Click here to register

• Southampton : 10th October : Click here to register

• Northampton : 11th October : Click here to register

• Cardiff : 11th October : Click here to register

For more information and to register, click here.

If you have any questions, please contact Hannah Dukes on Hannah.Dukes@tmgroup.co.uk or call 0800 840 5571

Reapit, the leading cloud platform for estate agents, has announced a partnership with mio, tmgroup’s new sales progression and communication tool that offers a smarter way to manage the home buying process. The integration of mio into the Reapit RPS cloud platform enables Reapit and mio customers to bring all their data involved in the home selling process into one place, keeping agents and the clients across the chain updated at all times. 

Powered by tmgroup, a PropTech company with almost 20 years’ experience in streamlining the property transaction, the mio tool creates transparency for estate agents and consumers by joining up the dots when building property chains, fulfilling sales progression and sharing information with other agents and clients involved in the chain.  

Developed specifically to address the challenge of high fall-through rates of property transactions across England and Wales, mio brings data from multiple parties together to create a shared view of the property chain and improve the experience for everyone involved. Initially, Reapit’s RPS cloud platform will feed information from property transactions including details of the seller, buyer and solicitors of both parties into mio using an API, saving agents the time and hassle of manually entering them. mio is already proving to be an effective tool for all sizes of agents from small independents up to corporates that are involved in a chain and invested in keeping it together. Greater information sharing reduces the time between sold status and the exchange of contracts and payment, helping lessen the chance of a deal falling through from a break or delay in the chain.  

Joe Pepper, CEO at tmgroup, the PropTech company that has recently launched mio to market, said “The mio product is a hugely exciting development for the industry, and the agents that have been using the platform over the past 12-months have all reported a significantly improved sales progression experience, with fall-through rate averages down by over 30 per cent. By integrating with the Reapit platform we will make it easy for estate agents to start to use and get the benefits of mio seamlessly, and it will help agents level the playing field in the current climate where online agents get paid in advance of selling the property. The combination of Reapit and mio is an ideal proptech solution for estate agents.” 

Jon Horton, Product Director for mio said “Reapit has an enviable reputation in the market for its agency software and services and I’m delighted that we are now working together and helping to improve the home buying and selling process for everyone involved.” Reapit’s RPS platform has a proven track record with estate agents, helping them expand and operate to their full potential. Its customer base includes many leading property brands with 1 in 5 UK property listings managed through the platform.     

Gary Barker, CEO of Reapit, said: “In today’s rapidly progressive property market, it is important that our partners do not feel technologically limited when adapting their business models to suit demand and changing customer expectation. Our platform allows them to explore various models, without having to compromise their existing operations. We are looking forward to working closely with our partners at tmgroup to advance the proptech market and provide continuous innovation to support chains.”     

Reapit’s partner programme not only enables technology companies to integrate into the RPS platform, but also become part of an agent’s workflow from within the platform.

About mio

Powered by tmgroup, mio is a sales progression and communication tool created by property experts for property experts. It speeds transactions forward, reduces fall-through rates, and helps estate agents win more business. 

For more information, visit www.mio.co.uk   

About The Reapit Group  

Founded in 1997, The Reapit Group is a CRM and Client Accounting software provider specialising in the residential real estate sector. Bringing 20 years of innovation to the property market, the award winning RPS cloud platform provides everything estate agents need to run and grow their businesses, from sales to lettings, front office to back office, and everything in between. The driving force behind Reapit’s ethos is a commitment to bring all an agencies data together for a single customer view and its strong service and training model, which has helped to grow leading brands such as Savills, Knight Frank, Romans, Marsh & Parsons, CBRE, Countrywide and Winkworth. The Reapit open platform partner program is at the hub of a proptech ecosystem delivering tested solutions and increasing choice of tools for agents.    Together, the group provides software solutions to over 20,000 users worldwide and employs 150 people across its five offices in the UK and Australia.

For more information, please visit www.reapit.com.

Here are just some of the conversations conveyancers, lenders and other property professionals have been having at our tmpropertyhub events in Liverpool across 2018…

1. “Second-time buyers are the ones really disrupting the housing market”

“I think it’s the people on their second moves that pose the real challenge to the housing market. They want to move up to get into the next location, but the differential cost is sometimes prohibitive. 

Many of them are at a time in life where they’ve got children and high outgoings, which makes it harder to move up the ladder. For the most part they don’t get any assistance – but if they don’t move, the first-time buyers can’t move either.” 

2. “Help to Buy is being used by a lot of wealthy people – not those it was really intended for”

“We’ve had some clients with exceptionally wealthy parents who are still going down the Help to Buy scheme route. I’ve also seen wealthy clients buying up new builds, not because they need to, but because they get to take advantage of Help to Buy, as well as Help to Buy ISAs to a certain extent.

I do find myself thinking that it really wasn’t designed for them – yet they are the ones able to take advantage of it.”

3. “Landlords are selling up due to tax and regulation changes – and adding to the housing supply”

“We’re seeing a lot of landlords selling up due to tax changes and new regulation coming in. It’s not for the amateur anymore. It’s just too expensive, and you can’t cover costs – so they are getting out.  

There are some positives to this. Now’s probably the right time for Landlords to get out, as they’ve made their capital return, so they aren’t losing out. This is also adding to the housing supply and helping the property market.” 

4. “The rise of ‘The bank of mum and dad’ is forcing conveyancers to adapt their process to manage the extra work”

“The bank of mum and dad is not a new phenomenon, but in terms of volumes right now, it’s almost one in two.

We can’t just let the mortgage offer expire because of the extra work either. We just have to adapt our processes and our workforce, so that we can deal with the actual work. 

We don’t charge for it. As far as we’re concerned, you just have to make sure you service the needs of the clients.” 

5. “‘The bank of mum and dad’ is supporting second-time movers too”

“First-time buyers are getting a lot of help right now – from the government with Help to Buy ISAs, as well as their parents with ‘the bank of mum and dad’.

However, we do see second-time buyers also making use of ‘the bank of mum and dad’. Probably not as many, but it does happen. It depends on whether they’ve generated any equity their first house.”

Are you noticing these trends in your local area? 

Want to join the next conversation in Liverpool? Our autumn tmpropertyhub is taking place on 10th October. 

Click here to register and find out more

Not based in Liverpool? Don’t worry! Our tmpropertyhub events are also taking place across a further 10 locations this autumn - from Leeds to Southampton.

Click here to find out if we’re coming to a town or city near you

Source : Liverpool Property Hub : 16th May 2018 : Attended by property professionals – including conveyancers and lenders. 

Property Hub Network events are engaging an increasing number of property professionals across the country – with a combination of NEW and returning locations taking the series up to 11 events this autumn.

Facilitated by tmgroup, Property Hub Network events are bite-sized, 2-hour sessions that bring representatives from all parties involved in the property transaction together for roundtable table discussions about their local property market – without compromising their busy schedule. 

Click here to find out more about our autumn Property Hub Network events

‘The bank of mum and dad’ got Property Hubs off to an engaging start

The series has gone from strength to strength since launching back in May 2018. ‘The bank of mum and dad’ took centre stage, as Property Hub Network events made their debut in Leeds, Liverpool and Nottingham. 

A number of key points were raised, from the choices (and compromises) parents are making to fund their children’s dreams of property ownership, to the wider impact and challenges of shared ownership options. All in all, fuelling the appetite for future debate – and demand for future events. 

Improving the home buying process sparked heated debate in July

The July series swiftly followed with heated discussions around improving the home buying and selling process – and the addition of Cardiff, Northampton, Bristol and Southampton locations. 

Key points included; Delays being caused by lenders who continue to use a mix of paper and electronic processes, technology having the potential to deliver time-saving solutions, but not replacing legal expertise or customer service, and overall highlighting the importance of managing home movers expectations throughout the process.

Autumn series adds another 4 NEW Property Hub Network event locations

Property Hub Network events are quickly building momentum and increasing their reach across the country – with 4 NEW locations being added into the autumn series, taking place across September and October 2018. 

Autumn series : Part One : September

• NEW Solihull : 11th September 

Click here to register

• NEW Harrow (London) : 11th September

Click here to register

• NEW Kingston-upon-Thames (London) : 12th September

Click here to register

• NEW Manchester : 12th September 

Click here to register

• Nottingham : 13th September 

Click here to register

Autumn series : Part Two : October 

• Leeds : 9th October 

Click here to register

• Bristol : 9th October 

Click here to register

• Liverpool : 10th October 

Click here to register

• Southampton : 10th October 

Click here to register

• Northampton : 11th October 

Click here to register

• Cardiff : 11th October 

Click here to register

Can’t see your nearest town or city on the list? 

Let us know and we’ll arrange a Property Hub Network event near you! Simply click here to submit your request.