Proposed regulation to mandate eConveyancing in Queensland

Proposed regulation to mandate eConveyancing in Queensland

1 May 2022. An article by Kevin Pai, Partner in our Brisbane office.

It is anticipated that Queensland’s transition to mandatory eConveyancing will take effect in early 2023, being 10 years after the commencement of optional eConveyancing in Queensland. The changes will align Queensland with the other States that have mandated eConveyancing and contribute to a nationally consistent approach to the delivery of this service.

Unsurprisingly, over 70 per cent of the relevant titling transactions are now lodged via eConveyancing in Queensland. Synergised with e-contract platforms such as OPEX and DocuSign, stakeholders can soon transact entirely electronically without having to second guess if the transaction may become a manual settlement.

Notably however, the mandate fails to take into account of transactions such as management rights settlements where hard copy original documents are required to be provided at settlement. As a solution, management rights agreements and deeds should become registered documents (much similar to powers of attorney) to allow more transactions to settle seamlessly via eConveyancing.

What is next?

In addition to the documents that have been listed to form part of the mandate, Queensland should move towards including other commonly lodged documents to form part of the mandate such as leases, easements, community management statements, building management statements and general request forms.

The mandate should encourage the industry to move away from manual paper lodgements on all sectors and enable stakeholders to complete any transaction entirely on a single platform electronically and seamlessly.