Legislation & policy backbone

The statutes and policy documents that authorise OPDA's work and constrain its design choices. Listed in approximate order of operational relevance.

Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 (DMCC Act)

The DMCC Act is the direct legislative authority for the Smart Data Scheme. It empowers the Secretary of State to designate sectors in which customer and business data must be made available for sharing via authorised third parties.

Property is named as a Smart Data priority sector under the UK Industrial Strategy. The DMCC Act also supersedes the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008 that NTS material-information guidance relied on — which is why that NTS guidance was withdrawn in late 2025.

Data (Use and Access) Act 2025 (DUAA)

The data-protection and access-rights complement to DMCC. Defines the legal basis under which authorised third parties may receive customer data, and modernises UK GDPR provisions for data sharing.

OPDA published a 4-minute explainer YouTube video specifically on the DUAA's impact for property — saved transcript at source/05-engagement/videos-youtube/transcripts/20250802_6_x9-Rj6sLg.txt.

Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act 2024

Adjacent legislation. Empowers leaseholders (Right to Manage, service-charge controls). Relevant because:

• Property data flows often touch leasehold information (TA7, LPE1 forms — both in PDTF's overlay set).
• The government's Plan for Change ties the legacy of this Act into the same modernisation narrative as DPMSG.

UK Industrial Strategy

Names property as a priority sector for Smart Data innovation, providing the strategic-policy justification for the entire programme.

OPDA cites this on their own smart-property-data-trust-framework page: "The UK Government's Industrial Strategy recognises property as a priority sector for Smart Data innovation. The direction of travel is set."

Land Registration Act 2002

Historical context: the Land Registration Act 2002 enabled "e-conveyancing" in law more than 20 years ago. Limited progress was made on that ambition. The DPMSG announcement explicitly frames the current programme as picking up that unfinished business with a multi-stakeholder coalition that didn't exist in 2002.

It is more than 20 years since the Land Registration Act 2002 was introduced with the hope that 'e-conveyancing'… would deliver these kinds of benefits. There has been some progress since then but the job of modernising the process has proved more challenging than envisaged and one that no single institution can achieve on its own.

Adjacent legal frame

How they fit together