By Wendy Yang -
Conveyancing has undergone significant changes in the past decade and a half. Prior to the introduction of online electronic conveyancing platforms (e-conveyancing), law clerks, paralegals and even entry level solicitors would attend property settlements at one of the settlement locations armed with their “three C’s,” their checklists, cheques and contracts.
Being able to complete a settlement was an essential skill for early career lawyers. For practitioners who were unable to attend settlement personally, settlement agents were available to go on their behalf, for an additional fee. The ability to appoint agents was particularly beneficial for those in rural, regional and remote areas.
Since the move to e-conveyancing, vendors, purchasers, and the incoming and outgoing mortgagees, have been able to meet and complete the transaction online. For those in suburban and rural, regional and remote practices, e-conveyancing has made the process more convenient and cost-effective.
On 25 June 2025, a NSW Upper House Select Committee was formed to investigate and report on competition reforms in electronic conveyancing. Amongst other things, the inquiry is examining the ‘impact of outages on property settlements, including home buyers and small businesses,’ ‘current pricing and opportunities to drive competition via pricing action,’ and NSW’s ‘commitment to deliver interoperability to the market by December 2025…’
In June 2024, the NSW Productivity and Equality Commission released the results of its ‘eConveyancing market study.’ The report defined interoperability as the ‘systems and processes to facilitate the exchange of data between ELNOs (Electronic Lodgment Network Operator), to enable a subscriber to use their ELNO of choice to complete a transaction, regardless of the ELNO used by the other parties to the transaction.’
The Productivity and Equality Commission report identified various shortcomings and opportunities in the e-conveyancing market. It described the market as ‘highly concentrated’ and it also identified PEXA as the chief ELNO in all jurisdictions where e-conveyancing operates. Significantly, following its market study, the Commission made a total of 18 recommendations to improve the sector.
PEXA’s Chief Regulatory and Corporate Affairs Officer Clare Gill says that various studies support the experience of conveyancers and property lawyers and “settling a property today is faster, simpler, safer and more reliable.
“The fact is that PEXA’s prices have not risen in real terms in 12 years, while it’s functionality, features, and resilience have all increased.”
Gill points out that when it comes to pricing, PEXA functions in a “highly regulated environment,” which was intended to safeguard both purchasers and vendors.
When it comes to greater competition in the marketplace, Gill says, “[P]EXA supports competition that encourages better customer outcomes, rewards innovation and investment, while not encroaching on PEXA’S intellectual property rights.”
While other service providers have attempted to penetrate the market, PEXA remains the biggest online conveyancing platform.
For regional solicitors like Charlotte Egan, Principal Solicitor/Director at Booth Brown Legal in Dubbo, the introduction of e-conveyancing in the regions was significant.
Egan says that when she finished her studies at the College of Law, it was at the “tail end” of paper conveyancing. She recalls the inconvenience and the amount of preparation that went into a paper-based settlement.
Egan explains that practitioners had to be prepared for settlements at least three days in advance, appoint an agent in Sydney, arrange the cheques and forward all the documents to Sydney in time for settlement. “If something went wrong at the 11th hour, invariably that meant a week or so delay in theory. So, it’s changed a lot,” she says.
Whilst there were some initial “teething issues” with e-conveyancing, Egan says that was to be expected for something new and most practitioners were quick to adopt the system. She points out that in the long run, the cost of using PEXA’s services, work out cheaper than paying agency fees for someone to complete the paper-based settlement.
Natalie Scanlon, director of Countrywide Legal and Business Services and President of the North West/New England Regional Law Society, says her practice has moved from paper based to 100 per cent online settlements. “With that, we’ve obviously gained some things but lost a few others …
“We’ve probably lost a lot of collegiality, to be honest, because we no longer go to settlements. It’s all done online. You no longer see people … we find that our banks no longer give us … figures the day before. Now, we’re lucky to have them ten minutes before,” she says.
When it comes to the cost and the convenience of using an online e-conveyancing platform, Scanlon says it has not really changed their costs. “We now spend more time [messaging the team on] a PEXA message as opposed to picking up a phone,” she says.
Scanlon explains that prior to online conveyancing, settlements were done at a fixed time, and things had to be ready before the settlement time. “[W]hereas now, [if] the settlement’s not ready, it rolls to the next 30 minutes.
“So, I guess it’s taken out some of that haste we probably used to have,” she says.
Compared to paper-based settlements, the benefit of conduct settlements online is that clients can receive their money faster and with cheques being phased out, money can be transferred with ease. “[W]e used to have funds in trust three days before because you’d have a cheque you had to draw … The good part is that people get their funds right away. So that’s cleared funds almost instantaneous and most banks [are] really good. It’s been a major life changer,” says Scanlon.
Although she adds there are some areas in need of improvement. “PEXA still doesn’t work perfectly for documents that are out of scope, for example, large rural properties or anything with a water licence doesn’t work.
“You can only do 20 titles at a time through PEXA. So, if you’ve got 21 titles, it becomes an … out-of-scope matter and … you have to do … the paper-based transaction, but you lodge [it] through PEXA,” she says.
“We have this really interesting world where if you do anything rural, you’ve got a paper-based title, and then all these electronic titles,” explains Scanlon. “And how do you make that work?”
For regional practitioners, water licences are an important part of the transaction. However, they still need to be processed manually, not through PEXA. “We either have (the water licence funds) in advance or agree to get (them) later so I guess there’s got to be trust between the practitioners. It’s probably a rural thing … how we make that work,” says Scanlon.
However, there may still be occasions where settlement needs to be completed via paper, which may cause issues as banks now lack staff with knowledge of how to conduct paper-based transactions. “So, if you go offline, then things are a problem because … we have a whole generation of younger lawyers who have never done anything on paper.
“They don’t know how to complete a transfer,” she says. Whilst Scanlon acknowledges that the majority of her work is online, practitioners should still know how to do paper-based transactions.
Egan believes that practitioners need to move with the changing tides and learn how to conduct transactions online or risk being left behind.
As for whether there should be greater competition in the market, Scanlon believes interoperability is important so that practitioners can continue to transact regardless of the platform they are using. She explains that if there is no interoperability, then practitioners will have to adopt multiple platforms.
On the question of interoperability, Egan says “I don’t think there’s any reason why that can’t happen or shouldn’t happen. What that then looks like, I have no idea,” she says.
The inquiry is ongoing, and a second hearing is scheduled for February 2026.
