Queenslanders counting the cost of compliance

NEW government legislation and the extra work that brings has had a significant impact on real estate lawyers in Queensland over several years. And the rollout of more compliance obligations is expected to continue over the coming years.

The Queensland market has come off the “super highs” of the COVID years but is still “quite buoyant”, according to Queensland Law Society chief executive Matt Dunn.

“Data from the titles office shows the creation of new lots remains strong in Queensland, which is likely a reflection of the demand created from domestic activity and inter-state migration,” he tells Australian Conveyancer magazine.

in other states, Dunn says the legislative compliance obligations attached to property transactions in Queensland are designed to assist Commonwealth and State governments.

“Law practices in Queensland are also self-assessors for Queensland duties payments and this adds to the work required in transactions,” he says.

Operating differently from the rest of the country, all of the Sunshine State’s conveyancing transactions are handled by the state’s 15,000 solicitors, working in more than 2500 law practices.

Dunn says the switch in Queensland to e-conveyancing for most transactions has made life easier for the state’s legal practitioners to settle quickly and efficiently.

“Queensland also has an active professional indemnity insurer who publishes material that assists with transactional compliance,” he says.

However, echoing the complaints of conveyancers

“All firms are looking to ways to make their services more effective, but with the constant run of legislative change in the process of Queensland conveyancing over the past five years it has been difficult to effectively move to an easily scalable approach.”

Dunn says two new measures will “reshape” the conveyancing market in the state: a new form of abbreviated cost disclosure; and a new Property Law Act which brings with it the new vendor disclosure regime and has yet to commence.

Dunn says the past year has posed some challenges as Queensland comes out of its COVID highs and returns to a more normal level of activity in the market.

“This has been coupled with the mandate to e-conveyancing and additional compliance obligations around CGT and other government requirements,” he says. “The biggest challenges in the next five years are dealing with compliance issues, both the introduction of the new vendor disclosure regime and the looming antimoney laundering and counter-terrorism financing (AML/ CTF) regime.

“The vendor disclosure regime has the potential to be positive in its impact in making buyers more aware of what they are purchasing and making contracts move more reliably to settlement.

“The AML/CTF regime will be an enormous challenge for industry and has the potential to be highly costly and largely ineffective. I feel this may be the biggest issue we are discussing in five years.” firms are looking for ways to make their services more effective, but with constant legislative change it has been difficult to effectively move to an easily scalable approach.”