Chimni Blog For Property Professionals

Case Study - Alexandra Mansions

nigel.walley@chimni.com (Nigel Walley) — Sun, 30 Mar 2025 12:48:52 GMT

Development: Alexandra Mansions, Norwich

Developer: EstateDucation Homes

Developer EstateDucation have specified Chimni Logbooks for their latest development in Norwich. And its a development with a great backstory, brought to life through Chimni's app.

The historic Alexandra Mansions building was the first block of mansion flats built in Norwich. It was designed in 1889 by Edward Boardman, a Victorian-era architect who had a significant influence on the development of modern Norwich, leaving a trail of beautiful buildings around the city. After a decade as the location of one of Norwich’s most famous night clubs Alexandra Mansion is being reimagined by developer EstateDucation Homes. Pitching their development as ‘Restoring Norwich History’, JaeVee are bringing the building back to life with 25 stunning, modern apartments and new retail outlets at ground floor.

The apps were created with conveyancing partner MovinLegal , as part of their unique developer package. Giving every buyer a Chimni account reflects the increasingly digital nature of home ownership. Working with Chimni, the developer EstateDucation wanted to share both the amazing past and modern future of Alexandra Mansions. Building each apartment a logbook and management app within the Chimni system covered both bases.

Why Logbooks Are Becoming Mandatory Across Europe

Thu, 20 Feb 2025 12:07:24 GMT

Digital Property Logbooks like Chimni are increasingly being mandated for residential property by Governments across Europe. In this new blog, we explain why

February 2025 - Nigel Walley, Chimni CEO

Digital Property Logbooks, like Chimni, are slowly becoming mandatory across Europe. In France and Belgium they are already required for all NewBuild properties and for any existing property that has had significant refurbishment. You can’t sell a home without one. Legislation is currently going through the Irish parliament to follow suit and with others countries addressing it as a policy priority this year.

Why Are Governments Requiring Logbooks?

The core principle behind Logbooks in the UK and Europe is that ‘every home should have a secure, digital record of all information, certification and documentation’. Building on this is an objective that the Logbook should have digital access to all key information held on public and commercial servers. These principles were established in discussions in which the UK was represented by providers trade body, the Residential Logbook Association (RLBA). These agreements led to the UK’s Government's recent trials with Logbooks for homes bought under one of the Govt’s Help To Buy schemes.

Across Europe Logbooks are viewed as supporting a wide range of Government policies. These include policies around the digitisation of property data, the introduction of materials records and circularity plans and the drive for NetZero Retrofit. The recent EU Energy Performance of Buildings Directive specifically calls for digital property logbooks for all property and requests that information like EPC data be made available digitally to logbooks.

For NewBuild developers there is recognition of the growing regulatory burden and the need to pass on an increasing amount of digitised information to a buyer. Chimni goes further and understands that, for the NewBuild industry, data and smart systems are increasingly part of the product. Our Logbooks are designed to be a companion app to homeownership for this world.

Defining A Logbook

Chimni is just one of the UK providers, who all have different propositions and functionality. Not all focus on both NewBuild and existing homes as Chimni does. But while the UK Government has been slower out of the blocks towards mandation it, there are some key principles on Logbook definition that have been adopted across Europe and by the Logbook industry in the UK. Codified for the UK Government by the RLBA, these principles are that:

A verified logbook should have the right of digital access to all information held on public sector and commercial servers about that property - covering Land Registry and EPC data through to Smart Meter and Utility data. (This is still a work in progress but the DB&T’s Smart Data Council work should move this on.)

The Logbook will become a 21C digital ‘deed’, with ownership of the Logbook acting a Digital ID that links to proof of ownership and ‘right of access’ to data when accessing information online. As the conveyancing process is slowly digitised, this Digital ID function will become more important for passing information within a transaction.

Ownership of the Logbook should transfer to a new owner on resale of any property. To this end Logbooks (if in existence for a property) already have to be listed on the ‘Fittings & Content’ form (TA10) as a digital asset being sold with the property.

The Logbook should allow homeowners to continue to upload data and documentation throughout their ownership of the property and to choose when and with whom to share it.

The homeowner must have the right to transfer their logbook records between logbook providers. Much as you are now allowed to transfer your phone number between mobile providers, this was intended to ensure a vibrant competitive market for Logbook providers.

The UK Government has been particularly concerned with property fraud recently. So, being able to link ownership of a Logbook to the correct property owner in digital systems is key, particularly when dealing with GDPR protected information. In the UK, the RLBA has worked with MHCLG to create a National Register of Logbooks to manage the link between owners and property records. If a Logbook is on the register it is viewed as proof of ownership and can access data on that property on public servers. So NewBuild developers should ensure that they are working with an RLBA registered provider of Logbooks when adopting them. (Chimni’s Logbooks are validated for the RLBA Register).

Does Our Handover Software Count as a Logbook?

Many of the Logbooks on the market can manage document handover for small developers who may not be using sophisticated systems for sales progression or handover. But in general Logbooks are viewed as a complementary tool to the sales progression/handover software and company portals that have emerged for the Developer market in the last few years. Broadly, handover software and customer portals are viewed as ‘software run by the developer’. A digital logbook for a property is a ‘digital asset owned and managed by the property owner’.

The key emphasis of the functionality being developed in Logbooks is on helping the homeowner manage their home after sale. However the two forms of software should work together. Logbooks like Chimni have the ability to integrate with developer portals or handover software to automate Logbook set up and transfer data/documentation.

If you are interested in finding out how you can add a digital property logbook to your proposition please contact Nigel Walley by email. nigel.walley@chimni.com

Do We Need GDPR For Property?

Wed, 24 May 2023 11:26:14 GMT

Data privacy and security is becoming a problem.

In recent years, there’s been a revolution in attitudes towards the privacy of personal data. As consumers we have become aware of how much data is created about us by organisations we encounter. After years of concern, legislation like GDPR and ‘Right to Erasure’ has shifted power back to individuals and away from corporates looking to exploit data for commercial gain.

As yet we haven’t had the same debate about the data generated by various organisations about our homes. For most of us a home is not just the most expensive asset we will ever own, but its also deeply personal and private place that we would normally guard carefully.

However the property data industry has begun to display the same disregard for homeowner rights as they did for personal rights before GDPR. It is increasingly common for data created about our homes by professionals in the property industry to be kept for their own use or sold on to data brokers for commercialisation. Which raises the question of whether we need an approach like GDPR to protect data privacy around our homes.

The problem is that the problem arrives as the result of separate, seemingly innocuous initiatives. Like boiling a frog we haven’t spotted the problem as it has been heating up around us.

For instance, the RLBA has long lobbied for estate agents and portals to remove records of homes that have recently sold from their websites. Internal photos and layouts should not remain in the public gaze once a property has sold. However, the intellectual property rights for images and floorplans remains with the estate agent who commissioned them. So a homeowner has no equivalent to the personal ‘right of erasure’ for photos or plans of the interior of their home however detailed.

It has also become standard practice for the mortgage industry to allow the detailed contents of the valuation surveys it commissions on our homes to be sold to data brokers. The surveying company retains the IP for the survey and the brokers aggregate the data and sell it on to portals and other proptech companies. The mortgage industry began selling surveys without any public discussion about the rights to the content they contain. No homeowner is given the option to keep the contents private, or to assume ownership of the data. There are no opt-outs from commercialisation. None of this mattered in a world of paper, or even PDFs when all data was hard to find, hard to share and often out of date. But with machine readable, shareable data, a new world of commercial exploitation has opened up without any debate about the ethics or the rights of homeowners to prevent sale of information on their home.

The EPC Register was made ‘public’ when it was established, to enable simple access to a home’s rating, to support the needs of the conveyancing community. Initially the information was public but had to be paid for. Without much discussion, this access was extended to include the detailed data about our home used to calculate an EPC rating. This includes details on heating systems, window quality, types of lighting, energy use and more. So rather than just a simple data point - your EPC rating - being made public, we have ended up with the details of a reasonably intimate survey of your home and its energy performance being shared whether you, as the homeowner, like it or not. According to DLUHC's licensing information, the domestic EPC data is re-usable under the Open Government Licence (See Owen Boswarva’s very good blog on this here). It has also never been explained why the status of your windows or your light fittings should be made public and it’s not possible to order an EPC and request the data isn’t published and sold. A reasonably competent sales person will know far more about your home than you do when they cold call to sell you new windows or a solar panel.

Like boiling a frog, this process is slowly being extended to other data without recourse to the rights of homeowners. Smart meter data is the next data asset being considered for public access. The companies, trade bodies and academics that make up the ‘Retrofit community’ are pressing for as much of the smart meter data as possible to be put into the public realm, using a ‘public good’ argument. The only discussion is about granularity - how much half-hourly detail can be put into the public sphere without revealing homeowner behaviour or habits (eg ‘ they only shower on Wednesdays’ ). Smart meter data is covered by the ‘Smart Meter Data Access and Privacy Framework’ (the DAPF) which does actually define smart meter data as ‘personal data’.

The DAPF currently allows suppliers to access half-hourly consumption data only with the consent of the customer (i.e. the customer must “opt-in”) but there appears to be zero consumer awareness of this. Energy suppliers can access daily or less granular data without customer consent, but they must give a clear opportunity to opt-out from that access. It is unclear how a homeowner would know about this or what constitutes a ‘clear opportunity’ to opt-out. Finally, suppliers can access monthly or less granular consumption data without customer consent, and without offering an opt-out, if the consumption data is required for billing, fulfilling a statutory requirement or fulfilling a (so far undefined) licence obligation. The Information Commissioners Office have already raised concerns about these processes in a response to an OFGEM consultation (see their submission here) stating their concerns that the vague approach will result in suppliers having full access to half-hourly consumption data without customers’ consent, or potentially in conflict with a direct refusal to give consent.

Once again this raises a question of the rights of a property owner to control the data created about our homes. Smart meters are just the beginning. Our homes are also interconnected with a wide variety of public and private systems, which all generate data and for which data privacy rules have not been established. As we add more intelligent systems to our homes, particularly those that are connected to wider networks (eg CCTV, solar panels, utilities) we need to establish the ownership of the data that these systems create. The boiled frog theory would suggest that we will just roll over and allow external organisations to capture and exploit it unless there is a regulatory framework put in place to manage ownership and control.

Part of the challenge is that this is not a new problem. We started boiling this frog a long time ago. Local Authorities have long published full details and drawings of Planning Permissions and Building Control decisions on the open web. This includes publishing the full case file and detailed drawings for every decision. This barely mattered when files were buried in council filing cabinets. But with open web systems the details of your home is open to any predatory person whether stalker, burglar or data salesperson. This data is also now being extracted from council systems by data companies and sold on the open market.

Most homeowners are horrified when shown how much data the organisations in the buying & selling ecosystem have on their home. They would be equally horrified to know how it is traded on the open market. The RLBA believes that we need to move to a presumption that property data belongs to the property and is only shared with homeowner permission.

Not only do we NOT have this presumption at the moment, but often the homeowner doesn’t even have rights of access to any data held by publicly funded bodies on their home. For instance, Land Registry charges a homeowner to access the information they hold about their own home. While Trustmark, who hold certification and Retrofit data on a million homes don’t have any mechanism to share the certification and installation data they hold with homeowners.

We have to remember that homes are not normal assets. Their configuration and use is deeply personal and private and the property data industry needs to respect that.

The GDPR has a chapter on the rights of data subjects (individuals) which includes the right of access, the right to rectification, the right to erasure, the right to restrict processing, the right to data portability, the right to object and the right not to be subject to a decision based solely on automated processing. But these cover data that can be clearly defined as ‘personal’. While some data about our home has been classified as ‘personal’ most hasn’t and there is no clear precedents for homeowners exerting their rights.

The RLBA believes that many of these rights need to be extended to our properties. The starting assumption for any data set should be that it is a digital asset related to our home and is the property of the homeowner. The homeowner should be in control of the data created ‘by, for or about’ their home and they should have control of when and who it is shared with. This is particularly true if data creates value - if data has value then it is value that belongs to the homeowner.

The county is about to embark on the biggest national programme for house renovation ever attempted as we attempt to Retrofit 25M homes for new NetZero standards. We will not get the public to join us in this endeavour if they sense that any information created by surveys, EPC assessments and Retrofit plans will immediately be sold to the highest bidder. The RLBA believes that we need a new approach to data privacy in the property industry.

Time for homebuilders to go beyond the handover pack

nigel.walley@chimni.com (Nigel Walley) — Mon, 14 Nov 2022 10:31:29 GMT

How do housebuilders respond to the growing digital sophistication of their buyers, and how digital property logbooks like Chimni can help.

November 2022 - Nigel Walley, Chimni MD

The average consumer is increasingly digitally literate. They expect access to and control of data about many aspects of their life. Their homes are no different. Homeowners are already using apps and services to manage their smart systems, heating, lighting and entertainment. This growing familiarity with smart systems is increasing a consumer appetite and expectation for data and this is beginning to impact builders of new homes.

People buying a property in this new world are aware of how much digital information has been created about their new home. It is no longer tenable to fob them off with a pack of user manuals and some warrantees. Whereas much of this information would have previously been held in paper, PDF or ‘unconnected’ IT systems, homebuilders have begun the digitisation of the traditional handover pack into a variety of digital forms including apps and developer portals

Chimni’s recent ‘Re-Inventing BIM ’ project took a completely new look at how buyers of new homes are expecting to receive information, and the ways it can be delivered to them in an understandable and usable way. Funded by InnovateUK, the study started with homeowner behaviour. We looked at the kinds of activity that homeowners get up to when running and maintaining their homes, and how better information could improve it. We also looked at what formats should information be delivered to them in to make it most useful. the results were publishied in our white paper - The DATA Home.

Many of the data sets we identified as core to this new homeowner experience can be created simply by suppliers and providers of components of new homes. In this new world, the information has to be opened up and held in connectable, open-web formats. The role of the developer will be to find ways to pass it on in formats and in services that make sense to homeowners. We believe that digital Property Logbooks like Chimni will be central to this process.Property Logbooks provide a homeowner with a home management dashboard and a secure data store. They are an evolutionary step beyond the simple developer portal, and are a ‘digital asset’ that grows over time to be passed to future owners on sale. Reference to a property logbook as a ‘related digital asset’ is now included in the data schemas being developed by the conveyancing industry.

A key finding of the ‘Re-Imagining BIM’ project was that it is possible to link property logbooks to construction software and developer portals. So that the creation and handover of Property Logbooks can be part of a digital workflow. But it requires data planning at the beginning of the construction process.

As BIM gets adopted these integrations will be simpler and the flow of data more seamless.

The first step is to recognise that data is now a core part of the ‘product’ not an add-on or customer service feature. Housebuilders need to recognise they have responsibilities to their buyers in this world. Its time for the humble handover pack to grow up and become the home management app that buyers will increasingly expect! Digital Property Logbooks not only deliver against this data requirement, but add a valuable new feature to a newly constructed home.

Nigel Walley

Contact Chimni for a demo here

Note: Chimni’s ‘The Data Home’ white paper is available to download from our website here .

Why Conveyancers Should Set Up Logbooks

nigel.walley@chimni.com (Nigel Walley) — Wed, 02 Nov 2022 12:57:26 GMT

Why Conveyancers should set up digital property logbooks like Chimni, for their 'buying' clients as part of an increasingly digital post-completion process

Nigel Walley - Chimni CEO

The current industry focus on finding ways to get people selling their homes to prepare digital ‘upfront information’ is a necessary part of the wider shift to a digital property sales process. This shift in focus requires some significant changes on behalf of sellers and industry professionals.

However, there is a simple step that Conveyancers can drive themselves that will help the longer term digitisation of property sales – setting up ‘Completion logbooks’ for buying clients.

If conveyancers were to set up a Chimni digital logbooks, as a standard step at the completion stage of every home purchase, it would achieve four things of benefit to the clients and the conveyancers themselves. It would:

simplify the increasingly complex task of handing over properties
establish a digital link to clients that can be sustained after completion
ensure that the next time they sell, they have their ‘upfront information’ already prepared
set buyers up to be future-proofed in an increasingly digital property world.

Simplifying Handover

Rather than inundate your client with PDFs during the purchase process, a Chimni log can be a shared storage facility during the process. Your buying client receives a working record, with all documents pre filed and categorised. At the same time, as the properties we buy are increasingly 'smart' with systems and devices (like Hive, Nest, solar panels and heat pumps) a Chimni logbook can simplify the handover by providing passwords and instructions.

Creating a Continual Link To Your Clients

The project folder in a Chimni log in which all the home buying documents are stored can be viewed as an extension of your case management file. We can take this further by building in links and prompts that ensure that a client can easily re-connect with their accounts in your systems or app. This is intended to improve the chances of their recommendating your company to others and, more importantly, of enabling cross-sell and on-sell of your other services.

Create 'Upfront Info' for next time

A Chimni logbook has the ability to pre-prepare a client for their next sale by creating a 'sales pack' containing all the necessary upfront and 'material' information that is increasingly being required prior to a property being listed. Using past documents and live links to key data sources, our upfront information packs can be connected digitally back to your systems to ensure a quick, accurate exchange of data.

Future-proofing Clients

Your home-buying clients are facing a world in which managing their home is increasingly 'digital' and 'online'. Giving them the tools to start this process

Time for a Demo?

A first step in evaluating whether your company should issue logbooks as part of the conveyancing process is arranging for a demo. We would be happy to show you the system and/or set up a demo logbook for you to explore within your company. Just send an email to Nigel Walley and we will do the rest:

nigel.walley@chimni.com

Managing Retrofit Plans With Chimni

nigel.walley@chimni.com (Nigel Walley) — Tue, 26 Jul 2022 12:07:13 GMT

Chimni's growing role in hosting Retrofit Plans and linking to finance and certification bodies.

10 August 2021 • Nigel Walley - Chimni MD

Up till now, the emphasis of Chimni’s work has been creating records of past activity - transactions, building work, materials and maintenance records.

Retrofit brings the need for a view forward as well as back. As we know, our homes are responsible for 14% of carbon emissions (CCC 2019) and all homeowners have been challenged with bringing up to new NetZero standards. For most of us that means planning for a series of future works to be undertaken on our homes over the next decades up to 2050.

So for a Chimni user this will mean adding a set of future project plans to their record of past ones. Homeowners need the information and tools to self-manage the process. Property Logbooks can deliver plans to these homeowners in manner consistent with the way they already manage their homes. So a Retrofit Plan is a 'plan of works' with intelligence and integrations built in.

There is a direct link between the data in a Renovation Plan and the rest of the data in a Property Logbook. Logbooks already contain EPC information, historic project records and links to certification bodies. As each component of a Renovation Plan is completed, the data will becomes a historic project record along side all the other project records in the Logbook.

Whichever Retrofit approach is used, at the core of each type of plan has to be consistency in approach and data captured. The industry has needed a standard data approach to this challenge, and Chimni has worked with the Green Finance Institute on data standards for Retrofit Plans, the GFI has just published a new White Paper summarising the work. Chimni’s new Retrofit Planning Module is built from that standard.

Connectivity and integrations with certification bodies and other service providers will also be key for Renovation Plans. Chimni logbooks already integrate with certification bodies and registers (like the EPC Register and HMLR). We are now also working to integrate and share data with companies running stand-alone Retrofit services. Those companies in turn will need to be able to lodge data in a home's Chimni logbook.

For Retrofit finance to work the data sharing needs to extend to finance companies to allow green loans to be measured and monitored. Chimni is a founder member of the RLBA who are working with banks and building societies to establish a standard basis for this reporting to happen with trials expected to start at the beginning of 2022.

It is also likely that many homes will be sold in the next few years with this Retrofit journey only partially completed. This means that progress will need to be assessed as part of the conveyancing process and project / green finance information will need to be passed between owners on sale. It is therefore crucial that the information in Retrofit Plans is co-ordinated with the other digitally-hosted data being collated by homeowners considering selling their home. This data needs to be integrated with the conveyancing and mortgage industries. Chimni logbooks will deliver these integrations.

The next challenge will be agreeing how this data can be exchanged and shared between the various systems and services being developed by the Retrofit community. We recognise that there will be Retrofit Assessors and Coordinators building stand-alone software and web apps using this new data standard. It is crucial that these systems can share data with homeowners in a variety of ways, including app integration and data sharing with Chimni Property Logbooks.

We look forward to working with the other industry players to agree data and API schemas necessary for this integration and data sharing to take place.

Nigel Walley - MD Chimni - Oct 2021.

Chimni Works With DLUCH on First Homes Initiative

nigel.walley@chimni.com (Nigel Walley) — Mon, 25 Jul 2022 17:04:12 GMT

Chimni is working as part of an RLBA initative with DLUCH to show how Property Logbooks can support the Government's First Home Initiative.

This article first appeared on the website of the Residential Logbook Association ( RLBA ) of which Chimni is a founder member.

June 2022 - In the last two years digital Property Logbooks for our homes have moved from concept to reality, with almost a quarter of a million homes in the UK now having one. There is a vibrant and competitive market for Logbooks emerging, as Chimni and the other six providers represented by the Residential Logbook Association will attest.

Their impact is already being felt in the Conveyancing industry, where Logbooks are part of the wider digitisation of the sales process. Now we are beginning to ask where else can they help deliver Govt policy.

RLBA member companies including Chimni are already active in the New Build market, which is increasingly seeing digital Logbooks as a tool to help the post-sale ‘handover’ process. The obligations on housebuilders to deliver data to buyers is increasing with the post-Grenfell Safety Bill and Net Zero performance targets both affecting new properties. Property Logbooks that are integrated with certification bodies and construction portals are becoming a standard feature of this new ‘data rich’ New Build market.

Chimni's Nigel Walley says: “As well as being a repository for the extra information that needs to be passed on at sale of a First Home, Logbooks offer some other features and functionality that will make the First Homes scheme easier to implement for Local authorities, particularly as they come to market for a second or third time. “

At the moment, Local Authorities are examining how to create individual First Homes registers to maintain the integrity of the scheme for the local authority and its local community and key workers. We believe that a solution from the RLBA could deliver a workable and interoperable national register with little cost to Local Authorities.

For a Property Logbook to be registered on the RLBA Register they have to conform to an agreed data and functionality specification. One aspect of this specification is that a Logbook should be able to flag up a special feature or function and support the notification function. When trialling this functionality RLBA member companies have enabled a ‘First Homes’ trial flag in their Logbooks enabling, amongst other things, summary reports on the number and distribution of ‘First Homes’ properties.

Nigel Walley says: “This means that the RLBA Register, without significant extra development, could provide a central register of ‘First Homes’ properties for Local Authorities who want to outsource the challenge. The only requirement to enable this is for First Homes developers to be register an RLBA Property Logbook with each First Homes property.”

The RLBA Register will be integrated with Estate Agent and Conveyancer systems in such a way that an alert could be sent to the Local Authority when material upfront information for sale is generated directly from the Logbook. In addition, Property Logbooks created to support the First Homes Scheme will have a flag; an alert could be sent in cases where any inbound data fields from a prospective seller match an existing Logbook, irrespective of whether upfront information was generated.

In this way, the RLBA Register will be able to notify participating Local Authorities at the very moment a First Homes property is marketed for resale and create a day “one” trigger to help ensure the specific terms, discounts and eligibility requirements set by the Local Authority are adhered to.

There is also no system by which a Local Authority can monitor if owners and agents are properly marketing a property so that it doesn’t fall out of the 3-month sale window agreed for First Homes properties. The RLBA Register offers the ability to address these issues, flagging a property’s first presence on websites and enabling a council to monitor the sales process and timeline to ensure it is free from any sales ruses which may compromise the raison d’etre of the scheme.

To require developers to deliver digital Property Logbooks to buyers of new homes, is not imposing new cost or admin on them. They already have to incur the cost and admin of collating their handover packs. Registering Logbooks as part of a First Homes sale will merely nudge them along the path towards digitisation. But for Local Authorities working on First Homes developments, a system of monitoring and reporting delivered by Property Logbooks could be transformational and help avoid the set up and implementation costs of each one building and maintaining its own First Homes register. A scenario which would lead to huge time delay and expense, and the potential for 355 siloed Registers across England and Wales.

For more information on Property Logbooks Register and our work with First Homes please email: nigel.walley@chimni.com.

Chimni And The Conveyancing Process

PAR002_123@heg.com — Sun, 20 Jun 2021 12:46:04 GMT

Property Logbooks like Chimni are slowly establishing their place in the Conveyancing process. Chimni CEO Nigel Walley explains more:

This blogpost by Chimni CEO Nigel Walley was first featured on Inside Conveyancing here

Chimni's product page for Conveyancing is here

In the last two years digital Property Logbooks for our homes have moved from concept to reality with almost a quarter of a million homes in the UK now having one. There is a vibrant and competitive market for logbooks emerging, as Chimni and the six other providers represented by the Residential Logbook Association ( RLBA ) will attest. Their impact is beginning to be felt in the Conveyancing industry, but knowledge and awareness is lagging behind.

So what is a Property Logbook?

A Property Logbook like Chimni is like a dashboard, user manual and service history combined. We already have all three for our cars, but few of us have them for our homes. As our residential property become more complex, with installations of smart home, security and green energy systems increasing, the need to centrally manage digital records and accounts is becoming pressing. A Property Logbook turns all these seperate data points into a 'digital asset' that grows in usefulness and value over time.

As well as helping with buying and selling, a Property Logbook has functions that are relevant throughout the lifecycle of property ownership, and across multiple industries. Depending on your provider, they should be able to produce, host and share data on maintenance, building work, council services and even lettings and rental.

A Property Logbook is therefore a record of a property, a place where documents can be stored, and links provided to arm the owner with all the information they need to know about their home and to manage it in the digital age.

Why does a homeowner need a Property Logbook?

As data around property is increasingly liberated and shared across professional systems, the amount of information on our homes held by government and industry is ballooning. What is remarkable is how little of it is routinely available to the homeowner. The RLBA believes a homeowner should have either ownership, oversight or, at least, access to all public data about what, for most of us, is the most expensive asset we will ever buy.

More than that, a homeowner should have a tool to store the kind of private data about a property that only they would ever have access to. This might include maintenance or performance records, construction details and running costs. This information could be made available to a committed buyer during a transaction. A digital Property Logbook is the only consumer-centric tool that puts the homeowner in the driving seat.

What information can be stored in a Property Logbook?

One again, this depends on the Logbook provider. The RLBA supports a vibrant and competitive market between Logbook providers, with innovation and variation encouraged. The Property Logbook for a listed Georgian house will have fundamentally different content and functionality to one used by a young couple in a flat full of smart devices. However, the RLBA has agreed a standard data core for each RLBA registered Logbook. This is so we can guarantee all players in the property market can build a standard way of integrating and sharing data. The data in a Logbook will include all the public data available on a property, as well as the private data mentioned above.

Are Property Logbooks and HIPS the same thing?

No. HIPS were just a specific snapshot of information about a home. A Property Logbook is a digital companion for the life of a property and will pass on to the next owner on sale. Most importantly, HIPs were dead information from the moment they were printed and were hard to validate. Logbooks have a large and growing set of links to live data sources that keep them perpetually up to date. A good logbook should be a tool to help a household manage their home and be able to output different reports to suit different user cases.

What is the difference between Property Logbooks and Sellers Information Packs?

As with HIPs, the new Sellers Information Pack (SIP) being launched by the Home Buying & Selling Group will be a snapshot in time to support a single transaction available as ‘upfront information’. They will be a one-off download of data about a home. Most Logbooks will have a functionality to output one of the packs, and we anticipate RLBA members being the primary suppliers of SIPs in the future. But the data transferred represents only a small subset of the information a Logbook can potentially hold. RLBA-registered Logbooks will be able to keep past SIPs in an archive, so an owner or buyer will be able to trace back the data from past transactions.

How do Property Logbooks benefit conveyancers?

Over time, as properties increasingly come to market with a Property Logbook, they will speed up the process of getting a property listed for sale, increase transparency and reduce fall through. So quicker, hassle-free sales. As the Logbook companies integrate systems with the Conveyancer CRMs, back office processes will be automated, and admin reduced. Our vision is that SIPs, and the Property Logbooks that produce them, will reduce the time and costs conveyancers face in the research part of any sale, and will free up time for conveyancers to deliver insight and value.

But it’s likely that Logbooks will also be part of the wider re-imagining of property sales. RLBA registered Logbooks will have the ability to connect directly to systems used by all players in the industry and make data available in ways not envisaged by the current system. Partners we are working with include the identity industry. The growing shift towards ‘passportable’ identity checks mean that a vendor can get a KYC/AML check done before they even bother an agent, host it in their Logbook and present it at every stage of the sale process..

The RLBA is also working with the mortgage industry, which is looking to access Logbook data at the start of the process to pre-clear properties for mortgages (so properties can also be marketed as ‘Mortgage Ready’).

What else do conveyancers need to think about?

Logbooks have emerged at the same time as a wider debate on how the legal industry should view ‘digital assets’. The RLBA were contributors to the recent Law Commission Consultation on ‘digital assets’ and we pointed out that a modern home now contains a growing array of systems, services and apps, that need to be handed over on sale. The new BASPI form now includes questions about whether a Property Logbook is present to support a sale, and includes them in the list of ‘digital assets’ that need to be included in the fixtures and fittings review.

Chimni and the RLBA are currently working with the Home Buying & Selling Group to investigate how the handover of Property Logbooks and these other digital assets can be made a reserved legal activity, and have the process enshrined in the CQS.

What’s the RLBA’s role in all this?

The RLBA is committed to establishing Logbooks as a primary tool we use to manage our homes. We want to create a competitive market, but one based on standards, rules and verification.

For buying and selling we are determined that, along with participating in the digitisation of property sales, Logbooks will support the fight against property fraud. At the heart of this is the RLBA Logbook Register, which is being built at the moment. Our system of Logbook registration will ensure that Logbooks can only be registered by the legal owners and, most importantly, will ensure there is only ever one recognised Logbook for any property.

If a Logbook provider is a member of the RLBA, and their Logbooks are listed with the RLBA Logbook Register, we can guarantee that ownership has been verified, and agreed data standards complied with. Over time we anticipate the Register’s systems will be integrated with all Estate Agency and Conveyancer CRMs and a Logbook check will be a standard, automated step in any sale.

What should Conveyancers do next?

Chimni and the RLBA are keen to drive awareness of logbooks into the conveyancing world. The most important thing is for everyone to experiment and learn about Logbooks. Every conveyancer should set up a Logbook for their own home from an RLBA Registered provider, and every conveyancing firm should ask the RLBA or individual Logbook companies to demo their products and explain them to their teams.

But most importantly, conveyancers should work with the RLBA or individual providers to look at how Logbooks can help improve their core business and in particular drive return business, referrals and on-sale of further legal services. All of the RLBA providers are clear, we intend to be strategic partners to the conveyancing industry, not competitors. A faster, more transparent industry will benefit everyone.

End

Chimni Logbooks And BIM Innovation

PAR002_123@heg.com — Sun, 20 Jun 2021 12:46:04 GMT

In October 2021 Chimni and OpenBIM specialist xbim were awarded an InnovateUK grant for a ground breaking project to ‘re-imagine’ BIM use in the housebuilding industry. This blog post provides the background and overview to the project.

The ' Re-Imagining BIM ' project was prompted by concerns about the low take up of Building Information Modelling (an advanced form of digital construction software) in housebuilding. BIM is one of the Government's priority 'Modern Method of Construction' (MMC) and is seen as a solution to poor design and construction in the residential construction industry. Chimni have long argued that Property Logbooks are a way to give homeowners access to the amazingly rich information that can be produced by using BIM to build homes. The project examines how to link the data and intelligence created within BIM during design and construction to the emerging generation of Property Logbooks. Most importantly it will examine ways to turn the construction data created during housebuilding into useful homeowner information and services that can be delivered through Chimni logbooks.

The project challenges the presumption that there is no use for BIM data in housing after construction. Chimni’s MD Nigel Walley said “ Our project makes the case that the homeowner should be viewed as a 'Facilities Manager' and could use the data if made available to them in consumer friendly ways ”.

The project subverts the normal process of BIM model creation and start with consumer research into the homeowner. Nigel Walley said “We looked at activity around DIY, maintenance, operation and upkeep of a range of property types and examined where this can be supported with better data from construction or refit.” The project createde a series of user cases with accompanying data models that can be incorporated into an Asset Information Model.

Later stages of the project looked at the apps and services being used by homeowners and test the project assumption that property 'logbooks' or 'passports' provide a way to deliver construction and product data to homeowners in a meaningful and usable format. Andy Ward of xbim commented:

“Creating a homeowner friendly way to expand the uses of BIM data has to benefit the whole of the new-build and retrofit housing industries. Linking BIM data to consumer friendly web apps like property logbooks means we can expand the potential of the OpenBIM approach and dramatically increase the ways in which BIM data can be shared amongst users.“

The project output was a series of case studies, with supporting data models and software examples, plus recommendations for data creation in new build and retrofit housing.

The project has already generated press coverage, mainly in the specialist construction press:

Construction Index - https://www.theconstructionindex.co.uk/news/view/bim-for-housing-research-gets-funding

BIM+ https://www.bimplus.co.uk/bim-in-housing-the-homeowner-is-the-facilities-manager/

BuildInDigital - https://buildindigital.com/chimni-and-xbim-win-innovate-uk-grant-to-re-imagine-bim-in-housing/

PBC Today – https://www.pbctoday.co.uk/news/bim-news/bim-in-housebuilding/99121/

"Property Logbooks are a way to give homeowners access to the amazingly rich information that can be produced by using BIM to build homes."

Chimni

Does The Conveyancing Industry Have To Consider Digital Assets?

PAR002_123@heg.com — Sat, 20 Jun 2020 12:46:03 GMT

This Chimni blogpost by Nigel Walley was used as a basis for a feature by Carol Lewis in the Sunday Times Property Section in October 2020. See here .

A friend recently showed me a CCTV app connected to a home camera with a startlingly clear image of a kitchen. However, it wasn’t the clarity of the picture that I found so shocking. It was the fact that it wasn’t actually my friends house that we were peering into. It was one he had sold three months previously.

I pointed out that, as well as being creepy, there was probably a law against what we were doing. He responded that he had never been asked about apps, systems or passwords during the conveyancing process when he sold the property. They buyer wasn’t interested in digital or tech. So he left behind a box of old paper documents and walked away with the home’s complete digital life.

This idea of a home’s ‘digital life’ would have meant nothing five years ago as data and digital tech were a minor aspect in how we manage our homes. This is now changing. Online accounts, passcodes, apps and other digital assets create a fog of connected data around our homes. Ownership of this data is not well defined and this problem becomes most obvious now when a home gets sold. At Chimni we break down this mess of digital activity into at least three types of digital ‘asset’ that need to be considered when buying or selling a home
• Online accounts for services
• Online accounts attached to hardware
• Data in long-term records

Online Accounts

The least controversial is the explosion in online accounts for services that used to be billed monthly by paper. Online accounts for utilities, insurances, service contracts etc have become standard for many homeowners. For the most part these are non-transferable, personal contracts with a financial obligation that a homeowner can be expected to terminate when moving. They don’t constitute a digital ‘asset’.
However, they increasingly leave a data footprint that has power and value as we begin to look at things like a home’s energy performance. A utility holds data that can tell you about energy use in and around your home. They probably have this data stretching back before you owned it. This used be held in closed computer systems that made it unshareable. Smart meters have ushered in a world where these data sets are now held as cloud data, and are share-able and machine readable. Chimni believes that these data records constitute a ‘digital asset’ linked to the home and we need to clarify who owns and can access them.

There are also a growing number of organisations like Local Authorities who are asking for a nominated account holder by property and only allow a single log-in per address. If these log-ins are for essential services, they also have to be viewed as a digital asset of the property. They either need closing down prior to exchange or details need to be passed on to new owners at exchange. But unless they are specifically called out in the conveyancing process this is not going to happen.

Online Accounts and Apps Attached to Hardware
The second group of potential digital assets are more problematic. Online accounts and support apps attached to hardware like the CCTV example, are a growing feature of the ‘Internet of Things’.

Systems like British Gas’ ‘Hive’, or Google ‘Nest’ began the mass adoption of these ‘home management’ apps. Newer products like Ring doorbells, CCTV and even lighting systems now come with control apps with remote control capability. Unless these are transferred at sale, a vendor can walk away with what is effectively the operating system for a home.

The current Law Society TA10 form already lists items like boilers and doorbells, and offers vendors the chance to leave a ‘comment’ against each item. At a stretch this could be interpreted as a chance to offer up the digital log-ins and app details. The new Buying & Selling Property Information (BASPI) form asks a homeowner to confirm that they “will leave all paperwork relating to any guarantee or warranty at the property” when they move out.

The word ‘paperwork’ is problematic here, as increasingly white goods, and other electrical fixtures and fittings provide digital (ie PDF) not paper documents. In fact the idea of a ‘document’ of any form is not long for this world, as apps and online FAQs makes the idea of a ‘document’, even a digital one, redundant.

At Chimni we believe that we need the process to be more explicit and proscriptive about the treatment of digital accounts in the sales process. The conveyancing process needs to specifically recognise the digital component of many physical devices.
If a physical device controlled by an app is left in place by the vendor, it needs listing out in the TA10 or BASPI with a specific question as to the nature of the apps & controls. The conveyancing process needs to specifically recognise the digital component of many physical assets and ensures it requests handover of related digital materials, keys, passwords etc. The industry needs to agree a workable basis for this handover process. It needs the same status in the process as the ritualised handing over of the keys. More importantly, a vendor should be made to guarantee they have cut all digital ties with the property.

Online Records
The last of the three types of digital asset is the most ephemeral but may end up the most problematic. This is the difficult issue of digital data relating to a property held online by the homeowner.

Until recently, most information collected for or about a property was held in paper form or, like utility data, in closed computer systems. Increasingly our homes have a life on the web. The explosion of publicly accessible data about our homes has occurred at a time when various government bodies are also calling for better record keeping about construction and performance.

The Hackitt Report, after the Grenfell Tower tragedy called for all homes to have a ‘golden thread of digitally held information’. The recent report on housing’s impact on the UK’s Carbon NetZero targets has called for all homes to have a ‘Whole Home Retrofit Plan’ and for it to be mandated, like an EPC, at sale or remortgage. There are other government departments calling for construction ‘materials records’ to be kept and made available online, and for rental properties to have a digital MOT document publicly available. None of the people calling for these records are clear about who should hold or manage these new data sets or what format they could be shared in. But they add up to significant new digital records relating to our homes. The property logbook providers, including Chimni, obviously believe that we can provide a solution to collating and managing these data sets on behalf of the homeowner.

Logbooks like Chimni are attempting to create a format for digital records that can hold all digital information on or about’ a property. But what has yet to be resolved is the asset status of these records when it comes to selling a property. It is our contention that these records, like the other digital assets mentioned, form a ‘data asset’ that needs recognition.

One of the dramatic downsides of the Government’s decision a decade ago, to dematerialise deeds, was that vendors no longer felt compelled to pass on these historic documents to the new owners. It sometimes happens, but there is no compulsion even if the vendor can find them. If we want Dame Hackitt’s Golden Thread of info to have a material impact, then these new digital records have to have the same requirement to be handed over that deeds used to have. We cannot have homeowners failing to pass on accounts and digital records if they are to have any meaning.

Property logbooks are being heralded as one part of the solution for tidying up the current chaotic buying and selling process. The main focus of this thinking is on upfront data at the start of the process. However, badly managed digital assets could add to the confusion at the end of the process. Giving logbooks a legal status could avert this.

This problem is only now emerging. But the one thing we can be certain of is that the data around a property will continue to grow in scale and variation. We currently have time to put remedies in place. But the longer we wait, the harder it will be.

End.