An Essay on The Value of Privacy by Bruce Schneier

Last month, revelation of yet another NSA surveillance effort against the American people rekindled the privacy debate. Those in favor of these programs have trotted out the same rhetorical question we hear every time privacy advocates oppose ID checks, video cameras, massive databases, data mining, and other wholesale surveillance measures: "If you aren't doing anything wrong, what do you have to hide?"

Some clever answers: "If I'm not doing anything wrong, then you have no cause to watch me." "Because the government gets to define what's wrong, and they keep changing the definition." "Because you might do something wrong with my information." My problem with quips like these -- as right as they are -- is that they accept the premise that privacy is about hiding a wrong. It's not. Privacy is an inherent human right, and a requirement for maintaining the human condition with dignity and respect.

Two proverbs say it best: "Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?" ("Who watches the watchers?") and "Absolute power corrupts absolutely."

Cardinal Richelieu understood the value of surveillance when he famously said, "If one would give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest man, I would find something in them to have him hanged." Watch someone long enough, and you'll find something to arrest -- or just blackmail -- him with. Privacy is important because without it, surveillance information will be abused: to peep, to sell to marketers, and to spy on political enemies -- whoever they happen to be at the time.

Privacy protects us from abuses by those in power, even if we're doing nothing wrong at the time of surveillance.

We do nothing wrong when we make love or go to the bathroom. We are not deliberately hiding anything when we seek out private places for reflection or conversation. We keep private journals, sing in the privacy of the shower, and write letters to secret lovers and then burn them. Privacy is a basic human need.

A future in which privacy would face constant assault was so alien to the framers of the Constitution that it never occurred to them to call out privacy as an explicit right. Privacy was inherent to the nobility of their being and their cause. Of course being watched in your own home was unreasonable. Watching at all was an act so unseemly as to be inconceivable among gentlemen in their day. You watched convicted criminals, not free citizens. You ruled your own home. It's intrinsic to the concept of liberty.

For if we are observed in all matters, we are constantly under threat of correction, judgment, criticism, even plagiarism of our own uniqueness. We become children, fettered under watchful eyes, constantly fearful that -- either now or in the uncertain future -- patterns we leave behind will be brought back to implicate us, by whatever authority has now become focused upon our once-private and innocent acts. We lose our individuality, because everything we do is observable and recordable.

How many of us have paused during conversations in the past four-and-a-half years, suddenly aware that we might be eavesdropped on? Probably it was a phone conversation, although maybe it was an e-mail or instant message exchange or a conversation in a public place. Maybe the topic was terrorism, or politics, or Islam. We stop suddenly, momentarily afraid that our words might be taken out of context, then we laugh at our paranoia and go on. But our demeanor has changed, and our words are subtly altered.

This is the loss of freedom we face when our privacy is taken from us. This was life in the former East Germany, or life in Saddam Hussein's Iraq. And it's our future as we allow an ever-intrusive eye into our personal, private lives.

Too many wrongly characterize the debate as "security versus privacy." The real choice is liberty versus control. Tyranny, whether it arises under threat of foreign physical attack or under constant domestic authoritative scrutiny, is still tyranny. Liberty requires security without intrusion, security plus privacy. Widespread police surveillance is the very definition of a police state. And that's why we should champion privacy even when we have nothing to hide.

http://www.schneier.com

Bruce Schneier is a pre-eminent expert on matters of security and is a strident critic of government's mindless reactive responses to perceived security threats

Home Information Packs - UK Vendor Disclosure

An excellent article on the introduction of the Home Information Pack (HIP) for the sale of property in England & Wales as from 1 July 2007. The article was published on thisismoney.co.uk.

The guts of the HIP that the Vendor must supply is -
The pack will include the following documents, most of which are currently provided later in the sale:

• terms of sale
• evidence of title
• replies to standard preliminary enquiries made on behalf of buyers
• copies of any planning, listed building and building regulations consents and approvals
• for new properties, copies of warranties and guarantees
• any guarantees for work carried out on the property
• replies to local searches
• a home condition report based on a professional survey of the property, including an energy efficiency assessment.

Also, for leasehold properties:
• a copy of the lease
• most recent service charge accounts and receipts
• building insurance policy details and payment receipts
• regulations made by the landlord or management company
• memorandum and articles of the landlord or management company

The article answered many other questions
Will failure to provide a home information pack be a criminal offence?
By how much will the new system speed up transactions?
Will the packs add to the cost of buying and selling, and who will pay?
What about sellers who cannot afford the up-front costs?
What are the benefits of the home information pack?
Won't preparing the pack simply shift delays to the beginning of the process?
Isn't it unfair to put all this extra responsibility on sellers?
Who will actually compile the home information pack?
Will anyone be exempt?
What will the home condition report cover?
Will the home condition report include a valuation?
What will the home condition report cost?
But will buyers trust a report commissioned by the seller?
Will mortgage lenders trust the home condition report?
Won't home condition reports become out of date and have to be repeated?
Will there be enough home inspectors available to do the job?
What about new homes?
The changes will not prevent gazumping, why not just ban it?
Why not adopt the Scottish system, where an offer is binding once accepted?

THe second last point is one of the most interesting ones, tho not directly relating to the HIP, is why didn't the changes end gazumping? I haven't got my head around the gazumping issue in that seems there is no certainty until settlement is concluded.

Vendors will now have to pay a significant upfront cost in preparing the HIP because of the provision of the home condition report.

Another interesting quesiton is who will have to actually compile the report. According to the answer is the person marketing the property will be responsible for ensuring that the pack is available. This would normally be the seller's estate agent but could be a builder, property developer, solicitor, or the sellers if they are not using an estate agent. There is no legal requirement the HIP has to be prepared by a lawyer.

The article included the following paragraph which has relevance to 247legal and NECS
"The Office of The Deputy Prime Minister (ODPM) is responsible for the new regime. It says Hips will ensure important information is provided up front at the very start, and electronic conveyancing will speed up the transaction once a sale has been agreed. 'Taken together, both of these measures will help create a faster and more efficient home buying and selling system.'" That's been my argument for some time. Interesting.

Identity Verifications in Electronic Conveyancing

In the current paper- based process of conveyancing, legal practitioners, licensed conveyancers and financial institution officers prepare instruments and in most cases have their clients sign the documents in front of a witness who also signs. While practitioners, conveyancers and banks have a duty to ensure that the person they are dealing with is who they say they are, they also rely on the person to certify the correctness of the information in the dealing by signing it in front of a witness.

Replacing Traditional Signatures

In electronic conveyancing, electronic instruments and dealings will be digitally signed by legal practitioners, licensed conveyancers and authorised officers of banks and other lenders. They will certify the correctness of the information as well as having carried out and documented a prescribed process to verify the identity of the proprietor or other transacting party they are representing. In the absence of a personal signature of the proprietor or other transacting party on the instrument, the Land Registry will entirely rely on the practitioner’s certification in changing the details recorded on its Torrens Register.


No Need for Signature Witnessing

In electronic conveyancing it will not be necessary for the digital signatures of practitioners and authorised officers of financial institutions to have their signatures on instruments witnessed. This is because practitioners and authorised officers have their identity independently verified as part of the process of being issued with a digital signature.

Identity Verification Procedure

The identity verification process that practitioners will be required to follow is expected to be prescribed in regulations. The process will be consistent with the obligations placed on financial institutions by the Commonwealth’s Financial Transaction Reports Act 1988. This Act prescribes the 100-point identity verification procedure currently widely used by banks and other lenders. If and when this legislation is replaced under the Commonwealth’s anti-money laundering and counter terrorism financing proposals, the new procedure replacing the 100-point check will become the basis for identity verification in electronic conveyancing.

Special Arrangements for Long-Standing and Remote Clients

To supplement the procedures used by financial institutions in verifying the identity of their clients, special arrangements are intended for practitioners to vouch for the identity of long-standing clients and to rely on the certifications of other practitioners when representing clients from remote areas. These arrangements will balance the need for closer attention to identity verification with the practicalities of representing clients in certain circumstances.

Certifying Compliance with a Prescribed Procedure

Practitioners certifying having properly carried out and documented a prescribed procedure to verify the identity of a client are certifying compliance with the procedure only. They are not certifying the client’s identity or in any other way “guaranteeing” that the person is who they say they are. Practitioners able to adequately demonstrate having complied with the prescribed procedure, will be able to confidently defend against their negligence having contributed to a loss from their client’s identity fraud.

Identity Document Verification

The Commonwealth Government is currently testing a new service that will enable practitioners to verify the authenticity of documents presented to them as proofs of their client’s identity. The service, to be available over the Internet, will allow practitioners to be confident that a birth certificate, passport or driver’s license, for example, has been issued by the relevant State or Commonwealth agency in the same name and with the same particulars as a document presented to them by their client as a proof of identity. While this new service when it becomes generally available will not prove that any document is genuine, it will allow greater confidence to be placed in the document because its details match those on record with the relevant government agency.

National Consistency

It will be of assistance to practitioners dealing with clients in more than one jurisdiction for the required identity verification procedure in each State and Territory to be the same. This issue is expected to arise in the national consultation on electronic conveyancing issues due to commence shortly.

Source: Electronic Conveyancing in NSW - Newsletter No. 17

Online vs Offline 3:1

A recent posting declared the death of residential leasing listings in the Age Classifieds.

I figure well is the same happening to real estate listings for properties for sale? It is but it's not over yet.

A quick comparison for properties listed for postcodes 3186 & 3187 (Brighton & Brighton East) for Saturday June 24.

The Age - 54 listings
Domain* - 162 listings

That's exactly a 3-1 ratio

A quick comparison of the 3 main agents in the area

Hodges. 9 in the Age and 37 on the web - ratio of 4-1
Buxtons. 15 in the Age and and 42 on the web - ratio 3-1
Hocking. 10 in the Age and and 32 on the web - ratio of 3-1

Conclusion. The current ratio is 3-1 online digital vs offline print. For every property listed for sale in The Age there are still 2 properties for sale not listed in the Age. That's quite significant. Admittedly the sample is quite small, the trend is not.

I predict that when the portals add Google type mapping the ratios will increase by a significant factor again as the buyers will able to zone into the precise areas they want to buy. Mapping is not something print can offer.


*realestate.com.au was roughly the same as Domain

The Transfer of Land - Missing in Action

The more you think about it, the more I, we you cannot wait for the commencement of Electronic Conveyancing. I would figure at least three times this year, the Transfer of Land document has been "lost" prior to settlement. Somewhere, somehow our client or the other side's client has not returned the executed Transfer in readiness for settlement. So what do we all do in the collaborative spirit of making settlement happen? If we are acting for the Purchaser, we email our client an Annexure page (A1) and have them print, sign and courier or express post the A1 back to us. The solicitor for the Vendor does the same with the actual Transfer and the two documents are married up at the actual settlement.

I am physically over it. I dont get involved. My staff know the routine and the job gets done. Its no-one's fault. The system is the problem and the mortgage and legal industry need to work hard to change, to embrace innovation and to change. Forget the excuses.

The securities industry eliminated this farce 10 years ago.

Web 2.0 Innovation

Web 2.0 - The Fin Review asks what it means?

"Web 2.0 portends a sea change on the internet. Web 2.0 sites are not online places to visit so much as services"

Flickr - photo sharing
Wikipedia - collaborative online encyclopedia
MySpace
Google - are just a few examples

The list goes on - but all such sites demand participation and interaction.

As the Fin concludes Web 2.0's impact has yet to be felt with business.

Digital Conveyancing & Vendor Disclosure - Digital Mortgages - Electronic Conveyancing & Settlements. Web 2.0 will transform the property mortgage and conveyancing services to an online collaborative process where the customer wins so do the legal & financial sectors. 247legal is just the first pioneer for Web 2.0.

Westpac - The Black Hole of Calcutta

Something not so amusing - but you have to laugh to maintain sanity. This time its Westpac's turn yet again. A simple request for mortgage payout figures elicits not a single response from Westpac Adelaides mortgage settlements area after SIX FAXED REQUESTS plUS FoLLOW uP pHONE cALLS.

Is this section run by Westpac or EDS? ITS a JOKE. and nOT funny. In such cases we now refer clients to the Banking Ombudsman. And I call upon every Lawyer and Conveyancer to do the same. At least in one case our client received compensation.

If the message is not clear - your systems are understaffed, non accountable and broken.

view the offending
Copy Faxed Instructions to Westpac sent on the following days

1. 26 May 2006


2. 3 June 2006


3. 5 June 2006


4. 9 June 2006


5. 16 June 2006


6. 19 June 2006

Seriously, if you want solutions and to provide world class service to your clients, consult the writer at 247legal.com.au for technical consulting services and digital conveyancing and mortgage solutions.

This storey is not dissimilar to the AOL / Vincent Ferrari - "I just want to cancel my account." - 21 times later

Serviced Apartments – a 5 year review

The real test for how a service apartment investment is performing comes around once every 5 years. That’s generally how long the term of the lease is before the operator or tenant exercises its option to renew and the rent review to market takes place.

The general framework for a Serviced Apartment Lease has the following facets:

1. The initial rent was set at an attractive yield of say 6.5% of the Sale Price


2. Annual rent increases were fixed, say 3% per annum for the term of the Lease, usually 5 years


3. The Tenant pays recurring body corporate fees


4. The Landlord paid rates and expenses of a capital nature such as sinking fund contributions


5. The Tenant has multiple options, usually 4 x 5 years


6. The Landlord will be up for refurbishment costs, such as re-carpeting and painting to maintain the standards for a serviced apartment operation. Factor in $10 to $15K every 5 – 10 years

There are certainly attractions to the long term investor in the serviced apartment model as presented above which is why they have sold very well to the investor who is attracted to the passive investment model.

Cracks however have started to appear in the model which should be of great concern to the Service Apartment Franchisors if they want to protect the industry’s reputation.

The biggest crack is the 5 year rent review to market and Landlords are seeing drastic rent reductions. One example is a Sydney Serviced Apartment Operator who has put to his Landlords rent reductions of between 25 – 47%. When a valuer is appointed and makes a final determination is yet to be seen. This is the worst example I have heard so far but it is not an isolated example of operators seeking wholesale rent reductions.

Many landlords will be looking for the exit door but what effect does rent reductions have on the re-sale value of their investment is obvious. Not only that, the whole industry is put at risk when the industry's reputation is damaged by precedent that is now being set by tenant operators.

Wikipedia & Conveyancing

Wikipedia is the online encyclopedia that "anyone can edit". Wikipedia has become a symbol of the potential of the Web. Wikipedia has its stumbles and sometimes a revert war can erupt - changes back and forth between a couple of contested contributors such as the Christina Aguilera entry which was frozen for a week after fans of the singer fought back against one user's efforts to streamline it.

The bulk of the writing and editing on Wikipedia is done by a geographically diffuse group of 1,000 or so regulars, many of whom are administrators on the site.

"A lot of people think of Wikipedia as being 10 million people, each adding one sentence," Jimmy Wales, Wikipedia's founder said. "But really the vast majority of work is done by this small core community."

The core success of Wikipedia can be attributed to the simple concept of collaboration and much less on individual contribution.

The same goes for the conveyancing process. Today in the offline paper world which conveyancing and mortgage processing is, the process relies on collaboration of multiple parties each serving the vendor, the buyer and the mortgagees. Electronic and Digital Conveyancing will simply evolve into an online digital state based on the simple concept of collaboration.

Certificates of Title in Electronic Conveyancing

What happens to Certificates of Title when electronic conveyancing is introduced?

This is one of the key issues to be resolved in developing the detailed arrangements for electronic conveyancing in NSW.

In the existing arrangements for conveying a property, the Certificate of Title (or CT) plays an important role in identifying the person entitled to deal with the property – either the proprietor (if the property is unencumbered) or a lender (if the property is mortgaged) – and in retaining control over the registration of subsequent interests that may affect the lender’s security. The CT is brought to the settlement by either the vendor or a discharging lender and handed to the purchaser or a new lender together with the instruments necessary to transfer ownership and, if necessary, discharge an existing mortgage and register a new mortgage. While holding the CT after settlement, the purchaser or new lender can be confident no other transfer or mortgage will be registered before they lodge their instruments for registration.

In an electronic conveyancing environment the role of the CT must change. With settlements taking place electronically without the physical meetings held today, a CT cannot be handed over to a purchaser or new lender in the same way. What happens to the CT in the future will depend upon what is agreed among all key stakeholders on three roles the CT plays in the current paper-based conveyancing system. These roles are:

1. as an indication to practitioners that their client is entitled to deal with the property


2. as an indication to purchasers and lenders at settlement that they are dealing with the person or business entitled to deal with the property


3. as an assurance to purchasers and lenders after settlement that another purchaser or lender cannot register a competing interest in the property ahead of them. The CT gives purchasers and lenders time to lodge their transfers and mortgages without fear of being beaten to the Register by another purchaser or lender.

There are a number of ways these roles can be maintained in an electronic conveyancing environment. Over coming months this will be one of the issues widely discussed in National Consultation Forums about to be set up by the National Electronic Conveyancing Office and the most desirable outcome will be a common arrangement in all States and Territories.

One approach could be for:

• a CT to be issued only for unencumbered properties and not issued where the property is mortgaged. Persons dealing with the owner of an unencumbered property would still need to ensure that they receive a valid CT at or prior to settlement. Practitioners and authorised officers of lenders would certify to holding the CT and retain it with other documents supporting the transaction.


• where a CT has not been issued, the controlling party (the party having the right to deal, usually a lender) would be clearly indicated on the Torrens Register for the property and would appear on all public searches of that title. This would ensure that anyone searching a title record can readily identify who is entitled to deal in the property and whether or not a current CT has been issued.


• where a transaction involves land for which a CT has not been issued, the controlling party would be able to transfer the right to deal electronically. This may require the inclusion of a new document type in electronic conveyancing.

The future arrangements for the CT need to be thoroughly explored to ensure that whatever decisions are made the current integrity of the conveyancing process is preserved and electronic conveyancing is convenient and easy to use.

Source: Electronic Conveyancing in NSW #16
Please Note - The above is provided with a view to elicit comment and generate discussion. It is not intended to prescribe Lands position in respect to the manner in which the issue(s) discussed will be managed in an electronic conveyancing environment

My personal view - I believe we need to embrace a system of No CT. It is up to us and Government to design and devise a system with No CT with the checks and balances as part of the system to reduce the incidence of fraud. How much fraud exists under today's current paper system and in the past? How much fraud has occured under CHESS? Should a compensation fund be created? Should the system be underwritten by Title Insurance? This will be the hot topic going forward. Brett Hayton

Digital vs Print - and the winner is .....

From next week Guardian journalists are to embark on a "landmark" change in the way they work by publishing all news stories on the newspaper's website up to 24 hours before they come out in print.

The change reflects the fact that while the print edition of The Guardian sells 374,580 copies a day, Guardian Unlimited has 12.9 million "unique users" a month, mostly from outside the UK.

Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger told Press Gazette: "It seems to me that the move to a situation in which the digital edition becomes as important, if not more important, than the print edition — some would argue that's already happened at The Guardian in terms of our global presence — seems to me to be inevitable.

"The advertising is already going that way. I think it's not viable for newspapers to carry on with a once-a-day print deadline because that's the way that we've done it for 200 years.

"If we don't wake up and realise we are competing with people on a daily basis who are beating us by 12, 18 and 24 hours on stories, then we are heading to irrelevance."

Digital vs Print - The only survivor in the digital vs print world will be books for the foreseeable future. As for everything else ...

Hostility to Change

Monash Law Faculty recently held a public forum to encourage debate amongst lawyers about Electronic Conveyancing. When it came to question time, why is it most contributions are innately negative and sometimes positively so off the mark I wonder why they bothered to turn up. Surely they are not representative of the majority. Perhaps such attitudes, beliefs, fears are widely held. It wouldn't surprise me in the least.

Example 1. Settlement has just occured. Is it possible to undo settlement to put the parties back into their position pre-settlement? Simple answer is No. Faaaaack. In my 20 odd years I cant recall undoing any settlement. As soon as I have bank cheque in hand - I'm out of there.

Example 2. I have a cash buyer. Now the client will have to pay stamp duty at settlement and not delay for 3 months. Answer - whilst NECS is not compulsory dont use NECS - stick to the paper, physical settlement routine. Second the problem with stamp duty is not the timing of payment its the fact that bracket creep has put everyone in the unfortunate position of paying 5%

Unfortunately the legal profession is conservative and slow to change plus the voice of the naysayers are often too loud. The good news is they will be the ones left behind and wont know what happened until its too late to change. Gen Y will just takeover.

Gen Y - they run fast & play hard

Within the next five years GenY will make up 40% of the workforce, today it is 20%.

The common attributes of Gen Y are they are agressive, they're hungry to suceed and they want time away from the office. To use a sporting analogy, they run fast and they run straight. They like to play hard. (dont we all)

In the workplace, they dont want to push paper. lets face it they are technology savvy and they dont care how things used to be done.

The Legal industry and specifically the conveyancing and mortgage industry should be concerned with this generational shift. If the industry does not change, ie get smarter, expect attrition. Gen Y just wont tolerate the paper crap and the inefficiencies of an offline paper world. (didn't the securities industry change over years ago?)

But for those that do adopt and evolve they can expect to reap the rewards and the profits. My previous post concerned incremental changes. Not good enough. We need big bang changes.

credit for quotes above - Business Sunday

"big bang" changes or upgrade incrementally?

NECS is an example of big bang changes. It is reported by AFR that Telstra executives had plumped for the riskier of two choices by pushing ahead with a "big bang" replacement of back-office computing operations. A $1 billion replacement of the spaghetti-like tangle of software and hardware that runs the carriers business is a key plank in the Telstra transformation strategy.

The carrier has 1200 business and operational support systems, and the move is to cut 900 systems in three years. As pointed out its not a technical issue, it's about return on capital. Its all about ROI and operational savings.

The article points out the banking sector has spent hundreds of millions of dollars over the years to build humungus new systems - and $600M later, they have no ROI. Now I am not sure where the journalist Emma Connors comes up with these numbers. Though I do remember reporting over the years banks missing the mark on technology investments.

Back to NECS - they too will ending up investing substantially in a whole new business model for settlements and lodgements. Their ROI will come but over many years, certainly not short term. What NECS is doing is big bang but it is also incremental given over the past 25 years they have been creating a land title database and imaging of plans and encumbrances. The next steps Land Registry are taking are two fold. One is improving the processes for lodging and registering Plans of Subdivision. I understand that trials are continuing with surveyors and councils. I would be interested to hear feedback on this. I believe the Eureka Tower was one of the first to be lodged electronically. The other step is electronic lodgment. Trials with banks are about to begin, soon.

Back to the banks - now I believe the banks need to overhaul their mortgage and loan processing, not with incremental changes but with a big bang overhaul. Don't just look to NECS because they aren't about solving this one, they are about lodgment. In the past you have looked at outsourcing, but really this has just resulted in more of the same, more or less. Digital loan and mortgage documentation and processing is the answer. Turn loans and mortgages into digital instruments together with digital processing and there you have not just innovation you have a huge ROI on technical investment.

EC NSW - Some statistics on dealings

What Dealing Types will be Possible in Electronic Conveyancing?

Not all of the existing 74 registrable dealing and instrument types in use in NSW will be available in electronic conveyancing. Which ones are chosen for implementation in NSW will depend upon how often they are used, how suited they are to an electronic format, and whether any special circumstances warrant their inclusion or exclusion. Consultation with industry will be necessary before final decisions are made.

The most likely ones

The principal objective of electronic conveyancing is to accommodate the most common dealing types – those required in the sale of a private dwelling, for example. These transactions typically involve a discharge of mortgage, a transfer and a new mortgage. These three dealing types alone account for 86% of all documents lodged in NSW at present and a majority of them are straightforward and therefore suited to electronic conveyancing.

Others that will be considered

After discharges, transfers and mortgages, the next most common instrument types are: caveats, including withdrawals (2.3%), leases (2%), transmissions (1.4%), name changes (1.3%) and notices of death (1.1%). Which of these are made available in electronic conveyancing will be the subject of detailed analysis and consultation in the months ahead. Caveats including withdrawals, transmissions, name changes and notices of death are most likely to facilitate maximum use of electronic conveyancing.
Some Issues Involved

Implementing electronic conveyancing will also require some changes to the way existing dealing types are used.

Transfers are likely to be made up of two separate but counterpart components, where the practitioner acting for the vendor completes one part and the practitioner acting for the purchaser completes the other. The electronic conveyancing system will ensure the information contained in both counterparts is consistent and the counterparts are linked. Mortgages are also likely to be made up of two separate but counterpart components, one for the purchaser’s practitioner to complete and one for the lender’s representative to complete. Mortgages and their associated memoranda will also need to be standardised and Notice of Sale data integrated with relevant dealings.

Each dealing type included in electronic conveyancing will be made up of standardised and fixed operative words interspersed with data fields. A unique dealing type identifier will be used to insert the standardised operative words among the data fields to produce the instrument for uniform screen display or printing during preparation, during examination after lodgment, or as the result of a public search after registration. The specific requirements for electronic instruments are likely to be prescribed in legislation in an equivalent manner to the existing requirements for paper instruments.

Source Electronic Conveyancing in NSW - Newsletter No. 15

• A lot of the above is not new news. What is news is the introduction to the concept of Counterparts and execution by practitioners. Transfers I can understand will be signed off by Practitioners for the Vendor and Purchaser. But why the concept of Counterparts? I would have thought the obvious is a common data set that each Practitioner approves and signs off. Interesting that EC-NSW throws this tidbit out about Counterparts but no explanatory memoranda. Come on guys, why two counterparts?


• Also new news is the concept of "Mortgages are also likely to be made up of two separate but counterpart components". Now here is something I dont think Practitioners will feel all that comfortable with and that is executing Mortgage Counterparts on behalf of Mortgagor clients. And is it all that practical? There are better solutions than this and they dont involve Legal Practitioners executing mortgages on behalf of clients. Forget Practitioners. Borrowers and Mortgagors should deal direct with the banks. There is a real solution which involves secure electronic files and the client signs a document referencing the unique electronic file. Not hard really.

Online vs Offline Classified Advertising

NYT - IN the matchup between the print and online versions of newspapers, signs of the Internet's ascendancy are growing stronger. As Colby Atwood, a newspaper analyst and a vice president at Borrell Associates, put it, "The tail is beginning to wag the dog."
According to estimates released on Friday by the Newspaper Association of America, newspaper print ad spending in the first three months of 2006 increased only 0.3 percent, to $10.5 billion, over the corresponding period last year. At the same time, spending for online advertising surged 35 percent.
"I think the handwriting is kind of on the wall that there is a large migration to the Web," Mr. Atwood said. "Increasing amounts of revenue and focus should be on the online properties. This is a transition that's taking place over several years here. It's not happening overnight, but it's definitely happening."
The numbers are still small compared with print: the first quarter of 2006 produced $613 million in online advertising, up from $454 million in the year-ago period. But it is the eighth consecutive quarter of growth for online ads, according to the association.