As the UK looks to modernise homebuying, our latest podcast highlights how Australia’s experience offers useful lessons on how digital change can support conveyancers and their clients.
Completion day brings together many of the pressures UK conveyancers manage throughout a transaction. They coordinate chains, oversee the movement of funds and keep clients informed, while carrying significant compliance and professional liability responsibilities.
Australia’s transition to electronic property settlements offers a practical view of what can change when information is available earlier and the movement of funds and title registration are integrated within a single digital process. Conveyancers are given greater opportunity to influence the timing of completion, reducing uncertainty and stress and improving customers’ experience.
The conversation is hosted by Angela Hesketh, Head of Government and Public Affairs at PEXA. She is joined by Nicky Heathcote, Association Chair at the Conveyancing Association, Chair of the Property Codes Compliance Board (PCCB) Compliance Committee and a PEXA Board adviser, and Shelley Baker, Conveyancing Manager and Director at Nest Legal in Melbourne and a member of PEXA’s advisory board.
Earlier visibility changes the conversation
The practical value of greater visibility is the opportunity to act sooner. In the Australian process described in the podcast, practitioners can check the status of documents, funds and lender activity before settlement. They can also follow linked transactions without seeing the details of matters they aren’t acting on.
That doesn’t prevent every problem. It can, however, change when a problem becomes visible.
Greater visibility can build confidence around completion timing. Nicky highlights what this could mean for conveyancers and estate agents: a firmer indication of what time completion will happen would allow them to give buyers and sellers more useful updates. In Australia, Shelley’s team tries to sign off the day before when all the financials are in place, with lenders increasingly providing pay out figures in advance.
In the UK, the progress of funds through a chain can be difficult to track. As Angela explains, money moves from one law firm account to the next and, once in the banking system, its arrival time isn’t always known. Knowing where funds are in the process would give conveyancers a firmer basis for keeping clients and estate agents informed about what time completion is likely to take place.
Australia’s transition happened in stages
Contrary to popular belief, electronic settlement in Australia didn’t start through one nationwide mandate. When Shelley joined a law firm in 1996, the prospect of moving away from paper settlements was already being discussed. More than two decades passed before electronic settlement became mandatory in Victoria in 2018, and other States and transaction types subsequently continued to move at different speeds.
Shelley began to see practical benefits straightaway before most conveyancers had moved across. Familiarity with the process allowed Shelley to support conveyancers who were newer to it and help real estate agents understand and support the change to their clients. Roadshows and ongoing customer feedback also helped shape the platform and working practices.
Australia’s phased rollout underlines why practitioner input matters. As the UK considers digitisation and common data standards, conveyancers’ day-to-day experiences can help test and understand how proposals will work in practice, whether they could reduce duplication and where liability should sit.
More time for the work clients value
Those questions have a direct bearing on conveyancers’ time. Where information comes from a known source and can be relied upon, the podcast suggests there may be less need to repeat the same checks throughout a transaction.
Shelley’s team now spends less time on paper and administration, leaving more time to speak with clients, address issues and help them feel comfortable and confident in the transaction.
Technology changes how parts of the work are completed, but clients still rely on the judgement, reassurance and personal service of their conveyancer. As Nicky puts it:
“People like people. It’s a people business.”
For the UK, the central takeaway is that reform could give conveyancers better information and more time to apply their expertise where clients value it most.
Watch the full conversation
Watch the full episode above to hear more about Australia’s electronic settlement journey and the questions it raises for UK conveyancing reform.