City firm DJ Freeman has introduced an innovative electronic service for its clients holding substantial property portfolios.
Using InMagic software, which was originally designed as a litigation support system, the firm can scan in all of the property deeds for a particular client's portfolio and then give them to the clients on a CD-rom.
David Johnson, a construction partner at DJ Freeman, said: "We have been using the litigation support system InMagic on our large pieces of litigation for a few years now, but we saw a lateral use for the system for our non-contentious work.
"We can take all the property deeds relating to a portfolio of properties, scan them on, code them and create a database containing all the title deeds. We send the CD-rom to the client which contains the software to let them view and search the documents."
According to Johnson, the process will also help his firm avoid the hassle of storing bulky documentation.
"We can get rid of the huge number of boxes of deeds from our site, and use off-site storage. This saves us paying out on rent and clears our cramped offices.
"When we get telephone queries, we can access the documents via our database very quickly. As far as I know, we are the only firm to offer this."
Johnson said a couple of big clients were already using the system, but he was keen to get all of those holding substantial portfolios on board. "We are looking at the big institutional developers and owners, and the insurance companies. We would very much like it if our clients would take up this service."