Compliance burdens put operators on high alert

THE president of the AIC (NT) Sue Carmody is forecasting a “traumatic” time ahead for conveyancers with the introduction of the Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing Act.

A concerned Carmody says the extra AML/CTF compliance burdens – including the legal requirement for conveyancers to report suspicious activity – will create real stress when the Act comes into effect in mid-2026.

“The AML is traumatic in terms of what the government is trying to achieve in such a small window of time and making us small operators responsible,” says Carmody, who adds conveyancers are already being threatened with fines for non-compliance, when the rules and guidelines haven’t yet been fully explained.

“We are having our NT conference in October, and we’re hoping to have somebody come along and actually speak to us about it. 

“We’ve been passing emails out to our members to go online and do the training sessions, and we’re waiting for the starter kits because most of us are one-man bands, so the starter kit is probably the way that we are going to go with it. 

“But this has just added another layer on top of another layer on top of another layer with all the compliances that Government is now putting back on the private sector.

“The sad part of it is that the government does not understand the situation and how people are running their businesses.

“They lump everyone from a one-man band to businesses with 50 employees into the same boat. 

“They expect the one-man bands to have a compliance officer to oversee the AML, when many of us simply have to be our own compliance officers.”

Also worrying Carmody are the ramifications conveyancers could face when complying with the AML/CTF Act.

“We will have to know where a client is getting the money from to fund a house purchase,” says Carmody, who believes conveyancers are being utilised as “unpaid Government employees”. 

“That’s now our role, and we actually have to, how would you say, be the police and dob people in if something’s suspicious.

“Yet, on the flip side of that coin, there’s nowhere in the Act that it says we are going to protect you if, all of a sudden, you’re dealing with somebody that is buying something fraudulently through a gang or the mafia or something illegal. 

“I can’t see anywhere in that legislation that says, we’re going to protect you (the conveyancer), if you dob them in.”

Carmody says her misgivings about the AML/CTF are more likely to affect conveyancers working “down south” than the 34 conveyancers operating in the Top End, who are currently more anxious for the long-time-coming rollout of PEXA.

“PEXA is on board in the NT as of this year,” she says, “so everyone’s quite excited about that, but not really that excited yet because it doesn’t affect us in the transaction chain yet.

“This year’s all about mortgage releases and then comes caveats followed by us in the last run, which is August, for the transfers and discharges.”

Carmody says the eventual full implementation of PEXA will ease the current stresses being experienced by Northern Territory conveyancers trying to settle properties while the banks stall on providing timely bank cheques to facilitate the settlements.

“The ongoing issue for us is the banks not turning up on time with bank cheques and delaying settlements,” says Carmody, who believes the banks want to abolish bank cheques in Australia.

“The problem is we aren’t fully serviced on e-conveyancing in the NT yet, so we need bank cheques. Trying to make things difficult for us on the ground doesn’t really solve anything. 

“It used to be that settlements would start at 11 in the morning and that way it gave the land titles office staff plenty of time to process everything in a reasonable timeframe. 

“Now the banks or their agents aren’t turning up down at settlements until sometimes 2.30 in the afternoon, and settlements finish at four. And we could have 50 or 60 settlements to complete.

“Now everyone’s pushed to the limit to try and get all the conveyances across the line in an hour.”

While Carmody says e-conveyancing will help solve the bank cheque problem, she can envisage another challenge for Top End conveyancers, currently working in the country’s fastest growing capital city, with 10.4% growth in the past year and a median house price of $630,000.

“With e-conveyancing coming in, we may well get inundated with conveyancers from interstate wanting to come up here and work,” she says. “Which is just going to cause another layer of stress for the conveyancers already working here.”