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A SMALL business expert says regulatory changes set to hit the conveyancing industry should be seen not as a major burden, but as a chance to revamp pricing and business practices.
That’s the message from Andrew Griffiths, a leading small business author, who urges conveyancers to shift their mindset when thinking about the impact of Australia’s new Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing (AML/CTF) laws on the industry.
Conveyancers face a big few years ahead with the sweeping national laws – bringing the country into line with most other nations – set to take effect in 2026.
Australia’s financial crime regulator has warned it will not hesitate to pursue businesses that breach the laws, which some conveyancers claim add undue compliance costs and time.
Addressing the AIC NSW state conference 2025, Griffiths put a different spin on the changes, saying they were for conveyancers “an opportunity you have on your doorstep”.
“Next July, AML CTF, what if that at the moment is ‘Oh my god’, but what if that is the greatest opportunity your industry has for finally resetting prices,” he said.
“What if that is the greatest opportunity your industry has for doing a complete reset. What if that is the greatest opportunity for you to do a complete reset about your business, because I believe that it is.”
He said the regulatory overhaul was an ideal time for conveyancers to take a look at charging what they’re worth and putting their prices up, personal branding, creating more word of mouth referrals, and redefining their value.
“Personally, you’ve got a great opportunity coming up next year to do exactly that, all of that, particularly putting up your prices,” Griffiths said.
Even so, he conceded that it can often be difficult for business owners to cope when there was a lot of change, upheaval and disruption going on around them.
At such times, part of the solution was to differentiate between the factors a conveyancer can control and those outside of control, the Tasmania-based expert said.
“We’ve got to go, ‘Right, what can I control? What can’t I control? Where am I wasting my energy? What impact is that really going to have’,” he said.
To action this, Griffiths recommended conveyancers itemise tasks they spend a lot of time and energy on then put them in either an ‘I can control’ or ‘I can’t control’ list. “I can control elements of my business that I want to change, that I want to develop, my health and wellbeing, I can get fit and can do what I need to do to recover,” he said.
Another tactic to “stay sane” at the moment, he said, was to seek out high quality information and media, and limit the flow of unreliable content. This was especially important in the current business landscape where “there is so much information available to our brains”.
“We’re putting so much time into stuff that isn’t true – checking your sources, checking where you’re getting your information from. But also, really limiting the amount of information,” Griffiths said.
“I think there is something uniquely beautiful in limiting that, disconnecting, turning off, being more selective about what we let into our brain – limit the voices that are out there and are going to distract us.”