Alleluia mate! The Aussies have shown the world and every doubting Thomas conveyancer that lawyers can transact property without printing off a shred of paper. That's if they are given the IT infrastructure to do so. The Australian government created PEXA, their national electronic conveyancing initiative. In Ireland, land of the pampered civil servant we have a different initiative called 'kick the can down the road so nobody has to make a hard decision or take on the civil service'. As long as I have been a solicitor (16 years) I've heard e-conveyancing bandied about. Obviously these things don't happen at lightening speed but a snails pace would have got us over the e-conveyancing line by now. Leman Solicitors has operated a paperless office for the last three years. Our efforts of an idyllic paper-free work environment are continually thwarted by the civil service - namely the Property Registration Authority and the Courts Service. Then again that's a lot of pampered pensions on the line.
The sale of the one-bedroom apartment in Dee Why is the first housing transaction in Australia’s history that was completed paperless from exchange to settlement. The vendor had access to the money from the sale within 10 minutes, allowing her to bypass weeks, if not months, of time-consuming visits to lawyers and banks. It was all made possible using InfoTrack’s eContracts and eSigning technologies; the vendor was able to draw up her own contract and exchange it with the buyer via her email. Sound familiar? That’s because you’ve probably completed similar transactions a thousand times when purchasing goods online. Except this time, it’s an apartment instead of a pair of shoes. The historic transaction paving the way for property to be bought and sold online in the future. Through the Federal Government’s national electronic conveyancing initiative, PEXA.
http://www.apartmentdevelopments.com.au/buying-living/news/paperless-apartment-sale-makes-history
