No CT - abolish certificates of title

No CT - full stop

First Principle
In the brave new world with no paper titles, to rely upon, you cannot sell unless you are properly identified as the person who has the right to deal with the title. The issue of Identity moves to the forefront.

How to eliminate the paper certificate of title?

1. Identity: First, title holder(s) must obtain a Proof Of Identity certificate "POI certificate". This should be done by certifying bodies such as the local  Post Office and not necessarily done by the lawyer or conveyancer ~ dont burden us with this responsibility
2. Key: The title holder must obtain a "Private Key" from the Land Titles Office; upon production of their POI certificate - and - the surrender of their paper title if its a clear unencumbered title
3. Insurance: every title holder has option of buying title insurance when they obtain their Private Key ($100) - this deals with the naysayers who continually raise the issue of fraud.

Settlements and Transfers

Vendors / Transferors

• Must use a registered conveyancer
• Must produce the Private Key and their POI certificate
• Transferor cannot settle without conveyancer logging the Private Key into the NECS or whatever its called (or handing it over over at a physical settlement if there is such a thing anymore)

Purchasers / Transferees

• Upon registration of the transfer of land a Private Key is issued to transferee.
• When they come to sell or transfer, repeat above

The first step to electronic conveyancing is the elimination, in toto, of the paper or duplicate certificate of title, no exceptions. That is, there is no such thing as electronic conveyancing unless paper titles are abolished


Link to NSW certificate of title solution

Last rites for state's white elephant project

AT long last, the end is in sight for one of the most wasteful and counter-productive projects ever dreamt up by a state government.

Victoria's utterly useless electronic conveyancing system, ECV, is about to be devoured by a truly national e-conveyancing system.

Ownership of ECV's intellectual property has been transferred to the company that will own the national system.

That company, NECDL, intends to merge the Victorian system into a network that will span the nation.

With the end of ECV in sight, Victorian taxpayers should be dancing in the streets. This system has been bleeding public money for years and has failed to deliver anything that remotely resembles electronic conveyancing.

It has been little more than a make-work scheme for consultants and an excuse for plenty of paper-shuffling and interstate travel by bureaucrats.



Solicitors and the big banks wanted nothing to do with it.

When the current Victorian government was in opposition, it had labelled ECV a "$50 million white elephant". But that probably understates things.

In 2009, figures contained in a regulatory impact statement indicated ECV could cost the Victorian government $80m in development costs by 2013-14, much of which was to be spent on contractors and consultants.

The decision to eliminate this system comes after repeated warnings from the big banks that they would only deal with an e-conveyancing network that spanned the nation.

The state's solicitors had also declined to use ECV because the Legal Practitioners' Liability Committee was worried that it would increase their potential liability.




So without the banks and solicitors, ECV could not be used for conveyancing. But it did succeed brilliantly in one area. It delayed for years the development of a truly national e-conveyancing system.

The previous Victorian government had sunk so much money into ECV that it could not accept the reality that it was on the wrong side of history. Before a national system could take root, the state-based system had to go.

The deal that will finally bury ECV is a masterpiece in bureaucratic face-saving.

ECV's intellectual property was independently valued but both the current Victorian government and NECDL say the results of that valuation are "commercial in confidence".

Unless that changes, Victorian taxpayers will never know the size of the financial gap between the valuation and the cost of building the system. Victoria has almost certainly lost money, but the beauty of the deal with NECDL is that those losses have not been crystallised.

In return for the intellectual property, Victoria has emerged with 33.7 per cent of NECDL. Other major shareholders are the governments of NSW, Queensland and Western Australia. But Victoria is the biggest shareholder.

The national system, which is expected to begin operating late next year, will be known as PEXA or Property Exchange Australia.

It is intended to deliver annual efficiency gains of $240m that will be shared between consumers and all those involved in the $1.4 billion conveyancing industry.

The cost of conveyancing for a typical home is expected to fall by between $120 and $130.

What a pity the intransigence of the previous state government meant those savings were not available years ago.

Chris Merritt | Legal Editor | The Australian | 19 Aug 2011

WTF - Special Condition in Contract of Sale

Hey this dude is way beyond the curve. Found this special condition contained in a Contract of Sale .....

"If by the Settlement Date, electronic conveyancing has been introduced within Victoria (not on a trial basis), the Vendor may advise the Purchaser that it wishes to settle electronically. If the Purchaser elects not to settle electronically, it shall pay to the Vendor at settlement, $200, being the Vendor's estimate of the additional expense in not settling electronically"

UK Electronic conveyancing transactions 'still raise concerns'

Consumers are still raising concerns about the use of electronic signatures and transfers being used in conveyancing transactions, the Land Registry has claimed.

Offering its response to the consultation paper E-Conveyancing Secondary Legislation - part 3, the body said it would proceed by using electronic lodgement and despatch.

"As a result, we are writing off development expenditure relating to electronic charges, signatures and transfers and making a number of other accounting adjustments in the annual report to better reflect the current status of our services," explained Malcolm Dawson, chief land registrar and chief executive.

6 July 2011

UK Land Registry puts e-transfers 'on hold'

National registry for England and Wales to concentrate on automating delivery systems after stakeholders express concern about electronic transfers

Land Registry has scrapped plans to use electronic transfers with e-signatures and to extend the use of electronic legal charges. This follows a consultation that concluded that customers were "unconvinced" by the process.
The agency launched the consultation in March last year to see whether its stakeholders, primarily conveyancers, lenders, financial institutions, regulatory and representative bodies and other property professionals, were receptive to the idea.
Malcolm Dawson, chief land registrar and chief executive of Land Registry, says in the new document that it found customers had faced a number of problems when using the service, and had serious security concerns.
"These problems have contributed to people's doubts about proceeding further down the e-conveyancing road at this time, especially when that journey is taking us towards the cornerstone of the whole electronic system: e-transfers," he says.

"This consultation has told us that many of our customers and stakeholders are unconvinced that the time is right to offer e-transfers. They would want to see e-charges and e-signatures sorted out first and they have not yet been persuaded that e-transfers are desirable or achievable in a time of low property sales and increased risk of fraud."
The e-transfer proposals would have made it possible to carry out the main conveyancing steps in the sale and purchase of a house electronically instead of using paper documents.
Dawson reveals that the agency will now focus on automating its delivery systems, so that customers can send in electronically documents that have been prepared "in a traditional way". Although the document does not explain this further, it implies that it will be able to process paper documents that have been scanned.
"This outcome will, I am sure, disappoint those who were enthusiastic about moving straight to a fully electronic conveyancing system. But, after listening to a wide range of people, we believe that the solution we're now proposing is practical, sensible and in tune with the times," he adds.
In the agency's annual report and accounts for 2010-11 also published on 30 June, Dawson explains that although customers had particular concerns about e-signatures and transfers, the percentage of transactions delivered electronically continued to increase in 2010-11, with over 70% of lenders using its electronic discharges services.
"Our current range of e-services is testament to our technological successes," he says, adding that it is still important to acknowledge the problems that customers had encountered.

The Guardian 2 July 2011