Firms surge to 100% digital
People & Property

Firms surge to 100% digital

By PEXA • Sep 2018

A pair of firms in New South Wales complete 100% digital transaction months.

Two progressive firms in New South Wales are helping accelerate property’s digital transformation, having both completed 100% of their matters electronically in a single month.

Broken Hill Conveyancing and East Coast Conveyancing – Cardiff achieved the impressive feat, as the state continues to embrace online property settlements.

A boost for regional firms

Charissa Pascoe, owner of Broken Hill Conveyancing, said the milestone was great reward for her firm and an indication of how working electronically benefits practices operating outside of major metropolitan areas.

“This is a massive achievement for our firm. I have been monitoring our percentages since around October last year and each month they have gradually been creeping towards our 100% goal. It was very exciting to finally see that happen.

“A lot of our settlements are done with other local law firms and the fact that they are all onboard with PEXA now too has definitely helped us reach this target. Being in a small regional town, far away from the city, electronic settlement has helped streamline the settlement process and we have less settlements falling over.”

“We have definitely cut down on requisition fees and settlement agent fees, I’m not worrying so much about the postage service losing our documents or not getting them to settlement on time, which is a real issue for us way out in the outback. If I had a choice, all my settlements would be electronic!”

Working to a single, error-cutting process

Chrystal Esgate, manager of East Coast Conveyancing – Cardiff said the news was unexpected, but a pleasing outcome nonetheless as the timely errors associated with the existing paper process were avoided.

“It was a surprise – we’d noted that more and more transactions had been electing to use PEXA, and we’d noticed that there’d been a tilt towards them in recent months.

“At the end of June, we decided to keep track of how matters many were being completed electronically. July was the first month we tracked this and when we got to the end, we were at 100%. Our preference is that all matters settle electronically, but we need to have all parties in agreement with that. The streamlining is important for the business and the time efficiency for our trust account clerk is quite a benefit.

“I’ve always had the goal that where possible, we complete electronic settlements to reduce the amount of mucking around. When there’s problems with paper settlements, it might be that cheques haven’t arrived in Sydney, that there’s a typographical error … PEXA helps to eliminate those mundane errors. While the system has things to work through in its own way, I really like the ability to cut those simple mistakes out that cause your client grief.

Moving forward – digitally

With a long-term goal ticked off, Charissa shared some words of advice from her learnings.

“My advice would be if you are feeling worried and overwhelmed then just start slow and work your way up.  We started with one or two PEXA settlements a month and then gradually built up from there as our confidence improved.  It’s like anything else in conveyancing, you need to become familiar with the process and pay attention to detail.”

“Change is happening, whether people like it or not, and we just have to adapt. It’s the way of the future.”

Elsewhere, East Coast Conveyancing – Cardiff has furthered its PEXA involvement beyond their 100% transaction goal. One of their team members recently completed the PEXA Train the Trainer program and is now qualified to train those within her firm and community alike on the ins and outs of PEXA.

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