Property transfers increasingly moving online
Faster settlements will soon be available to more Australians, with the country’s new electronic conveyancing network now added to two more states.
PEXA, the government agency that is overseeing the rollout of a national platform, is currently working with the WA market to oversee initial transfer transactions for processing.
The agency also announced that caveats and settlement notices are now live for Queensland – although there’s a hold-up with the revised Duties Act still before the state’s parliament.
“Pending that outcome and other contractual matters, PEXA will advise the date when Queensland transfers can be legally undertaken in the state,” it said.
Online property transfers were first unveiled in NSW, in November, followed by Victoria in January.
Electronic conveyancing accelerates the settlement process by transforming payments and document lodgements from a manual procedure to an electronic procedure.
PEXA said that the e-conveyancing system has so far processed more than 24,000 transactions valued at almost $1.5 billion.
Banks and financial institutions representing 97 per cent of market share are expected to have joined by the end of the year.
PEXA chief executive Marcus Price said vendors and sellers will increasingly realise that e-conveyancing is a better way to transact property.
“The good news is that we are building national momentum with our goal of bringing practitioners – and ultimately consumers – a nationwide online platform,” he said.
“We are now getting critical national uplift with financial institutions and legal and conveyancing firms turning to a digital solution that will increasingly see electronic conveyancing becoming more and more popular.”