This article was originally published by HousingWire, an HW Media publication dedicated to serving mortgage and real estate professionals.
Ubitquity, developer of a blockchain-secured platform for real estate and title recordkeeping, has announced a new partnership with Rainier Title.
As part of the partnership, Ubitquity will build out a platform for creating tokenized property title as well as parallel records of conveyances for Washington-based Rainier.
Blockchain is technology that was created initially as the record-keeping technology behind the bitcoin network, but over time, its use has expanded. The goal of blockchain is to allow digital information to be recorded and distributed but not edited, according to Investopedia.
Ubitquity’s patent-pending Blockchain-as-a-Service (BaaS) blockchain platform called “unanimity” allows a client to input his or her data and store it on the blockchain. It also aims to allow an accurate audit of all the records.
For his part, Ubitquity Founder & CEO Nathan Wosnack believes that blockchain technology will disrupt, not replace, the title industry.
As such, he says “it makes sense for a company as innovative as Rainier to approach this with full force.”
Another interesting aspect of the partnership is that Rainier is in the process of migrating to Qualia, a closing room and conveyance suite. Ubitquity will work to produce software that “seamlessly” integrates into Qualia, the company said.
Rainier Title CEO Bill Bergschneider said his company sees blockchain technology “as the next step for the industry.”
“We are proud to be the first in our region to initiate the blockchain process, which will create a more transparent, secure and consumer-facing trend of real property transfer,” he added. “With a host of modern-day distractions, we see this process as the most logical step forward. And Ubitquity’s approach is smart and pragmatic.”
According to a blog post by Ubitquity, Rainier Title will be providing its clients tokens that represent their property. This will give the title owner way to create new value with their property such as creating fractionalized ownership investment opportunities, Ubitquity said.
The company added: “Having a token represent the property, and a blockchain record of the conveyance would also create huge efficiencies for the abstract process.”
Ubitquity is also addressing increased cybercrime in the industry. The company’s smart contract module, a blockchain-based smart escrow contracts product named SmartEscrow™, aims to reduce overhead costs and mitigate risks.
Once data is placed on the blockchain it can be easily retrieved and reused without a need for further verification, the company says. The data then becomes “a single source of truth” all parties to the transaction can trust without the need to reconcile, according to Ubitquity.