Is property going social?

I’ve got a feeling something interesting is happening to the way real estate operates online in the UK. Anecqdotal evidence is emerging that social networks like Facebook and less conventional startups are perhaps starting to find the chink in the armour of the traditional property listing market here.

In particular, Facebook Marketplace is starting to be used by niche poperty agencies like Pimlico Flats, more successfully than the usual online suspects like Craigslist and Gumtree. That latter site has had problems with other aspects of its site like, having to dump dating because of spam and scams. The same problems are plaguing Craigslist in the UK, and this is something that Pimlico Flats picks up on in a blog post on the subject. The ability to verify Facebook users turns out to weed out the scammers.

At the same time, although Findaproperty and Rightmove remain strong, less conventional sites like Globrix, Nestoria, Zoopla (see below) and even niche social networks like Asmallworld are being used.

Zoopla, which is venture backed, is now innovating with realtime auctions.

Today it’s partnered with US auction site Real Estate Disposition to launch real-time online bidding for property auctions. Property agents will get a 0.25% of the purchase price (in addition to normal commission. About 150 homes (worth £15m) will get auctioned beginning on February 11 and auctions will be weekly thereafter – note that less than two homes a week are sold by the average estate agent branch in the UK.

TechCrunch
Mike Butcher on January 26, 2010

Impasse broken in national e-conveyancing system

A PUBLIC company has been established to develop a national electronic conveyancing system, in a major breakthrough in the long-running battle for a uniform approach that will save hundreds of million of dollars.

The company, to be called National E-Conveyancing Development Ltd (NECDL) will be chaired by Alan Cameron AM, a lawyer and a former chairman of the Australian Securities & Investments Commission.

Three state governments, NSW, Victoria and Queensland, are owners of the company and have contributed $5 million in equity. Last year, the federal government rejected a request for $20m to establish the company.

"There were always those in the background saying this will never happen," said Simon Libbis, the executive director of the National Electronic Conveyancing Office.

One of the problems has been making sure every interested group -- the lawyers, states, conveyancers and bankers -- agreed on the best approach.

"Being a public company, it has clear obligations," Mr Libbis said.

Last year it was reported the proposal was at risk, after years in the making. The benefits of the scheme include cost reductions for both buyers and sellers.

One of the key issues the company will resolve is the extent to which Victoria's already established infrastructure can be used to help create a new system that will satisfy all stakeholders, Mr Libbis said.

NSW Land Minister Tony Kelly has been a strong supporter of the initiative and said yesterday he was "very pleased" with the latest developments.

"I know this will cause great savings for anyone buying and selling a home," Mr Kelly said.

He was confident the system would succeed now "everybody has a stake on the board" as there had been earlier tensions between the groups.

While NSW, Queensland and Victoria were involved at this stage, Mr Kelly said this represented more than three-quarters of development in Australia and that the system would be fairly easy to extend to the other states once the scheme was up and running.

The savings in having a national electronic system have been estimated by industry groups to be $250m a year.

It is also possible the establishment of the company will help state governments qualify for $550m in commonwealth funding for undertaking 27 major reforms that have been endorsed by the Council of Australian Governments.

Apart from Mr Cameron, six other non-executive directors will sit on the board, representing a variety of interests.

They are Rowan Munchenberg, the executive general manager at Commonwealth Bank; John McIntyre, former president of the NSW Law Society; Geoffrey Adam, chief executive of the South Australian division of the Australian Institute of Conveyancers; Leigh Sanderson, former deputy director-general and general counsel of the NSW Department of Premier and Cabinet; David Smith, executive director and commissioner of the Queensland Treasury; and Chris McRae, executive director, Land Victoria, of the Victorian Department of Sustainability and Environment.

Susannah Moran | The Australian

New E-conveyancing entity formed

NSW, Qld and Victoria have officially formed the new national e-conveyancing entity called National E-Conveyancing Development Ltd (NECDL).

NECDL has been established and funded by the governments of Queensland, NSW and Victoria to progress the work previously being guided by the National Steering Committee. The company is chaired by Alan Cameron AM, a lawyer and former Chairman of the Australian Securities and Investments Commission, who brings extensive business and governance skills to the company critical to its task. The other six non-executive directors are:

• Rowan Munchenberg, representing the Australian Bankers’ Association, is Executive General Manager for Service Delivery of the Commonwealth Bank of Australia

• John McIntyre, representing the Law Council of Australia, is a former President of the Law Society of NSW and a current member of its Property Law Committee

• Geoffrey Adam, representing the Australian Institute of Conveyancers, is Chief Executive of the SA Division of the Australian Institute of Conveyancers

• Leigh Sanderson, representing New South Wales, is a former Deputy Director-General and General Counsel of the NSW Department of Premier and Cabinet

• David Smith, representing Queensland, is Executive Director and Commissioner of the Queensland Treasury

• Chris McRae, representing Victoria, is Executive Director, Land Victoria of the Victoria Department of Sustainability and Environment.

NECS will continue its work through a transition phase.

further information eCommerce Report

Hayton Kosky voted "best conveyancing lawyers"

Hayton Kosky Lawyers have polled #1 property lawyers by the readers of Your Investment Property magazine.

Your Investment Property is read widely by property investors and each year YIP has a readers poll voting in categories such as

• Property Investment Advisor of the year
• Buyers Agent of the year
• Mortgage Broker of the year

Hayton Kosky won the award as "Property Law Specialists of the Year" in recognition of the service the firm provides to investors, being a combination of upfront advice to investors before they sign a contract; use of technology in delivering the service; and recognition that this is still a people business and could not be done with out the back up of dedicated staff.

The award is no small feat given there are literally thousands of law firms and conveyancing companies across Australia

Your Investment Property magazine

Electronic titling systems

A recently published research paper by Benito Arruñada does a comparative study on electronic titling systems, covering: functioning systems of New Zealand and Ontario; proposed Australia and UK.

Abstract

Initiatives in electronic conveyancing and registration show the potential of new technologies to transform such systems, reducing costs and enhancing legal security. However, they also incur substantial risks of transferring costs and risks among registries, conveyancers and rightholders, instead of reducing them; entrenching the private interests of conveyancers, instead of increasing competition and disintermediating them; modifying the allocation of tasks in a way that leads in the long term to the debasement of registries of rights with indefeasible title into mere recordings of deeds; and empowering conveyancers instead of transactors and rightholders, which increases costs and reduces security. Fulfilling the promise of new technologies in both costs and security requires strengthening registries’ incentives and empowering rightholders in their interaction with registriesr.

1. Introduction

Electronic automation has made possible new ways of contracting, registering and settling transactions. In essence, technology has enabled the automation of many tasks performed by conveyancers when preparing and authenticating contracts and communicating with each other and with the registries. Many registries’ tasks have also been automated, including not only communication and archiving but also some routine compliance checks.

The least problematic changes are the use of information technologies for archiving and accessing information, by keeping the register in digital form and providing online access to the elements of the register that are open to conveyancers, parties or the general public. A second step is to make it possible for users and/or professionals to lodge documents at the registry electronically. In principle, these documents could be the digital version of those in the paper system. However, to fully exploit the potential of the new technologies, electronic lodgment is often accompanied by substantial standardization of documents and transactions. To this effect, the structure of the transactions has to be carefully examined and forms preapproved by the registry.1 For these standardized transactions, parties themselves or their legal representatives complete the forms in an electronic workspace by entering the specific data on the transaction they want to contract and register (e.g., the identity of the buyer or mortgagee, the name and incorporators of a new company), often “pre-populating” them with data from registry’s databases that identify each property and its owner or identify each company in subsequent filings. If necessary, documents in the workspace can be electronically shared by parties and their representatives for review, amendment and approval, which is useful in conveyancing. After all parties have granted their consent, the document is submitted electronically for registration. The most ambitious systems also provide for transferring funds between parties.

The most problematic issues relate to: (1) who is allowed to lodge documents at the registry; (2) the nature of the review performed by the registry staff before registration; and, encompassing both of these aspects, (3) how the new system ensures that rightholders have granted their consent.

First, to speed up reform, reduce opposition to reform and, allegedly but doubtfully, enhance security, the new system may reserve access to professional conveyancers, by granting them exclusive lodgment access to the registry. For example, in New Zealand, Singapore and British Columbia, only conveyancers may lodge documents electronically. Alternatively, the system may be open to other participants, at least to those who register for that purpose. This is the case of Ontario and the English 2002 Land Registration Act which allows “do it yourself conveyancing”.

Second, lodged documents may be subject to a variable mix of automatic and human preregistration checks for compliance. Most systems have instituted electronic lodgment but retain manual review by registrars before registration. The idea of allowing conveyancers not only to lodge their instruments electronically but also to alter the register after automatic controls by an “electronic registrar” but without manual intervention by the registry staff (often called “agency registration”) is generally rejected or only applied to simple transactions. Thus, the pioneer Electronic Land Registration System in Ontario maintains ultimate control by registrars, and the same solution has been adopted in British Columbia and Singapore (Low, 2005). The system under development in England also introduces validation by the registry prior to execution and completion. The New Zealand Landonline system is exceptional in that conveyancers directly alter the register subject only to automatic checks for some impediments to registration, such as caveats and pending dealings, with no manual intervention by registry staff prior to registration. Thus, it provides the paradigm case of agency registration.

Third, reforms introducing electronic conveyancing differ in how they ensure that rightholders have granted their consent to the transaction. Expediency has led some reformers also provide for transferring funds between parties. not only to allow but to actually require conveyancers to sign the documents electronically on behalf of their clients; clients sign only the authorization documents to be kept by conveyancers. (Interestingly, in some countries conveyancers were happy to sign on behalf of their clients while in others they were opposed to bearing the risks of such representation. A major factor here seems to be previous practice, as both solutions are in place in paper-based systems.3) Alternatively, the system may require the digital signature of rightholders on any document, lodged, which is safer. This may allow parties to dispense with witnesses, including conveyancers, for authenticating purposes. Security may also be enhanced by having the system notify rightholders and even request their consent before registering any relevant alteration in their rights.

The rest of the paper examines in more detail some systems of electronic conveyancing and registration at different stages of development with a view to obtaining guidance on these issues. It focuses especially on the New Zealand experience which, as a lone example of agency registration, is an exception to the general policy of retaining manual control of registration.

Link to the paper