International law firm Hogan Lovells, supported by global industry leaders including BNP Paribas, The Crown Estate and Elevate, has launched a new transaction automation infrastructure.

It aims to reduce administrative costs, enhance data security and accelerate transactions throughout the global real estate industry.

Organised in response to the CREtech Reimagining Real Estate Challenge, the new technology solves one of the longstanding obstacles to transaction automation in the sector – the lack of interoperability of document and contract management software.

The new infrastructure uses the Integra Ledger blockchain to authenticate privately held real estate contracts, enabling secure, automated transactions even between organisations using different software systems.

Steve Harber, head of property management at BNP Paribas Real Estate, commented: “We believe that this new technology has the potential to create significant efficiencies both in terms of time and cost, and most importantly drive data quality at source for our clients and in real estate in general.”

Daniel Norris, global head of real estate for Hogan Lovells, explained that the process takes initial instructions data to generate documents automatically, securely verifies completed data and documents via the blockchain, auto-populates client systems and extracts the metadata into all types of management reports. "Over the coming weeks we look forward to inviting more industry leaders to join in this important collaboration.”

The new technology impacts all types of real estate transactions - leasing, sales, financing - no matter what software is in use by real estate owners, brokers, tenants, banks and law firms.

Hogan Lovells stated that it hopes that the technology will eventually accelerate deals, improve liquidity and positively impact asset values.

Norris added: “This technology is not only set to transform this sector but crucially in the future, it also has the potential for wide applicability across any commercial transaction in any industry.”

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