Dealing with the authorities is rarely a pleasant experience. Employees at law firms often have to go to great lengths to obtain the correct documents and data. Yet there are digital solutions available to speed up such processes. This is the basic idea behind DocEstate’s market strategy. One of the service provider’s managing directors is Jerome Sprinkmeier. He spoke to Paul about DocEstate’s business model, the connect+ platform for requesting all official information on property portfolios, and the added value it offers law firms.

Jerome Sprinkmeier is co-founder and managing partner of DocEstate GmbH. The Bonn-based company sees itself as a digital interface between public authorities and applicants in the property sector. But how did two young men come up with the idea of offering a digital service to handle dealings with public authorities? Jerome and his partner were working in the property sector and constantly had to gather information. Some of this information was held by public authorities. Due to the way the system works in Germany, it is a cumbersome process to obtain information from public authorities. This is simply because there are so many different points of contact.

The difficulties in gathering information ultimately led the pair to become founders. Both the collection and the analysis of data needed to be carried out more efficiently – in other words, digitally. But how do you launch a project like DocEstate? Did Jerome and his partner have to constantly visit the authorities in person, or was this handled via interfaces right from the start? Jerome replies that their system was designed from the outset to utilise various interfaces. Where possible, the authorities were therefore connected via these interfaces.

Barriers to digitalisation

However, the problem usually lies not with the interface, but with what public authorities understand by ‘digitalisation’. Often, it is not possible to access databases. Instead, there are databases containing scanned documents, which are, of course, completely useless and the antithesis of smart. Today, the vast majority of public authorities still rely on manual processes. Part of DocEstate’s work therefore involves educating public authorities on digital processes. It is not uncommon for files to be fetched from a cupboard in response to a data request, which, even for medium-sized projects, results in enormous effort and long waiting times.

Ideally, DocEstate can access a well-organised, up-to-date database. In such cases, the time saved compared with the traditional method of dealing with the authorities is dramatic. As an example, Jerome compares the timeline of a typical commercial property transaction – once using the traditional method, and once digitally via DocEstate. Using the traditional method, the net workload amounts to around 27 hours, with a ridiculous waiting time of four to six weeks from the initial research to the final bank transfer. With DocEstate, the waiting time is reduced to two to four weeks, but even more importantly, the net working time is significantly reduced. The workload is reduced to a very manageable two minutes.

Regulatory bottleneck

A problem arises when receiving the information. As the prescribed official channels must be followed, most of the correspondence is sent by post. DocEstate has therefore set up a digitisation centre to act as an intermediary. This centre continuously handles the digitisation of incoming official correspondence. The first step involves creating a PDF; an AI system can then analyse the data and make it available in a usable format. The reason for this is that many companies are unable to create additional capacity to deal with issues such as the current property tax matter at short notice. DocEstate therefore endeavours to streamline the processes as much as possible in advance.

Speaking of property tax. There’s a huge amount of work ahead – after all, we’re talking about a good 36 million properties in Germany. Is DocEstate even equipped to handle the flood of enquiries? Jerome points out that his company has digitised all processes wherever possible. However, the authorities will also need to play their part. Whether they’ll be able to cope with the volume of work and provide the requested data in good time remains to be seen.

Together, we can do it

Paul points out at this stage that, thanks to DocEstate’s architecture, which eliminates media breaks, the hsp Integration with Opti.Tax has decided. Cases can be imported into the DocEstate system without any disruption. It is important that the law firm or the specialist registers separately with DocEstate and creates an account. Only then can the integrated solution be used directly from within the software. Billing for DocEstate’s services is ultimately handled directly via DocEstate, either on a monthly basis or, upon request, via individual invoices. The software allows the client to be entered as the invoice recipient, meaning the invoice is sent directly to the client.

There is one more important point to note: For the issue of property tax reform New powers of attorney must be issued. Clients’ existing powers of attorney are not sufficient, as the property tax reform requires more extensive enquiries to be made. Jerome has agreed to make appropriate templates for powers of attorney available on the hsp.community.