Conveyancers in crosshairs of criminals targeting property cash

CONVEYANCERS are caught in the crosshairs of criminals targeting large sums of cash handled during property transactions.

The government’s Scamwatch centre has been notified of reported losses totalling $12,237,870 in false billing cases in the first five months of 2025.

While not every one of the 1,261 reported scams involved practitioners, the headlines published when home buyers are fleeced of $100,000s show they are seen as rich targets.

Just last week, the story of a fraud against a New South Wales couple brought the issue into sharp focus once again – and shone the spotlight on a completely innocent conveyancing business.

That case – where the South Coast couple lost $449,000 in 2023 – highlights that conveyancers and property lawyers always need to be constantly on guard. It also shows that they must be extra diligent in educating clients who are – as in this case – often the weak link for hackers.

Australian Conveyancer is aware of two more current cases, including a $500,000 sting in Victoria, and another involving a much bigger sum.

“What we are finding is that the clients are getting hacked by the criminals,” said AIC NSW chief executive Chris Tyler, who added that the victim’s email and bank details could come from breaches of a real estate agent or mortgage broker.

“All our members – and I would say it’s the same around Australia – are hyper vigilant to cyber.”

In NSW, conveyancers must have a bold email footer reminding clients to be diligent. It says ‘DO NOT transfer any money to any bank account without telephoning our office to confirm account details’.

“If our members don’t have this footer and fall victim, they have to pay an extra $5,000 up front on their insurance.”

For conveyancers and property lawyers, educating clients to read these warnings to take the same precautions is key.

“Conveyancers and property lawyers are well educated against these risks,” Tyler said.

“It’s getting clients up to the same level that we have to really work on.”

AIC WA chief executive Brook Durling is only too aware of the problem.

“We have high value transactions with big chunks of cash being sent to agents from time to time to facilitate the financial settlement,” he said.

“It seems an attractive proposition to the fraudsters and unfortunately, they have success every now and then which no doubt spurs them on to keep trying.”

This year’s false billing scams look like becoming an unwanted record.

Annually, the number of false billing scams has risen from $3.2 million in 2020 to more than $8.5 million in 2021 and 2022, and up to nearly $14.4 million in 2023, before dropping to $4.9 million in 2024.

High profile cases that have hit the headlines during that time include:

• December 2024 – a Gold Coast couple lost $250,000 on a home when they fell victim to criminals who re-routed their new home deposit after hacking emails.
• November 2024 – Westpac highlighted how a sharp-eyed banker stopped a property buyer from losing $1.2 million after their account had been hacked.
• August 2024 – a Melbourne couple’s home-buying dream turned into a nightmare after criminals hacked into their conveyancer’s web server to trick them into a more than $500,000 transfer.  The tech-savvy buyers, one of whom works in finance and IT, were convinced by an email sent from their conveyancer’s account — but with altered bank payment details.
• 2024 – Scamwatch revealed that a couple lost nearly $900,000 when they were duped by a fake email from a scammer pretending to be their solicitor as they were finalising their settlement.
• May 2022 – a WA woman lost $732,000 after scammers intercepted email communications between her and her settlement agent.
• September 2021 – a Sydney couple were swindled out of close to $1 million in a similar incident.