By Peter Rosier -
Snapshot
- From February 2015, electronic conveyancing will be available to all members of the profession through the PEXA platform
- The NSW Land and Property Information (LPI) has embarked upon a project intended to make the process of a undertaking an electronic conveyancing transaction as similar as possible to a paper one
- Solicitors using the 2014 edition of the standard form of contract for sale and purchase of land (which is available only electronically) will notice a new clause – Clause 30 – that will operate if the parties elect to proceed in electronic conveyancing. Part of the clause is intended to be instructive; to assist practitioners to understand what is expected of them in the course of an electronic transaction
The move to electronic conveyancing has been called a journey. On 10 November 2014, the journey continued when the second release – referred to as Release 2 – of the electronic system PEXA went live.
This increase in capability allows the online preparation and electronic lodgment of transfers and caveats, as well as the associated financial settlement. Readers will remember that mortgages and discharges were the subject of Release 1, which went live on 13 October 2013.
Since then, over 3000 discharges and mortgages have been prepared and lodged through PEXA. (PEXA – Property Exchange Australia Limited – provides the electronic platform that parties use to conduct electronic transactions.)
Release 2 permits practitioners to conduct transactions in PEXA, while Release 1 allowed participation only by banks and financial institutions. Whilst the immediate availability of the system to the legal profession will be limited to selected firms in Sydney and Wollongong, from February 2015 it will be available for use by the profession generally.
It is thus an appropriate time to update the article that appeared in the Journal in December 2013, E-conveyancing – A new age. A series of subsequent articles to be published in the LSJ will investigate more closely some important aspects of the system, such as verification of identity, client authorisation, preparing your practice for e-conveyancing, and the alignment of electronic conveyancing with paper conveyancing and, in particular, priority notices.
