I refer to the article by Peter Mericka entitled “Conveyancing and unqualified practice” contained in the July 2004 LIJ, pages 55-57, and to Russell Cocks’ letter entitled “Muddying the conveyancing waters” (“Unsolicited”, September 2004 LIJ, page 8).
To quote Peter Mericka in his article (page 57), “Regulators have been reluctant to require compliance with the Legal Practice Act with the result that unqualified legal practice in this industry is the norm”.
It seems to me unqualified practice is rife in the conveyancing industry. What was the result of the Legal Practice Board’s review (refer July 2004 LIJ, page 56)? What is being done to stamp out unqualified practice?
Grant Sturgeon
Non-practising lawyer
Editor’s note: The LIV is vigilant about unqualified persons who engage in legal practice.
Section 316 of the Legal Practice Act 1996 authorises the Legal Practice Board and the LIV to apply to the Supreme Court for an injunction restraining a person from engaging in legal practice, or representing or advertising that they are qualified to engage in legal practice.
The LIV has made several applications for injunctions pursuant to the section. The injunction power is the only one available to the LIV under the Legal Practice Act. The LIV has no power to regulate conveyancers generally.
The Legal Practice Act provides limited powers to the Legal Practice Board to regulate conveyancers.
Last month, Victorian Attorney-General Rob Hulls and Minister for Consumer Affairs John Lenders announced the terms of reference for a review of the regulation of Victoria’s conveyancing industry. The terms of reference include assessment of the current regime to determine what risks consumers face, including the administration of consumer and third party funds, complaints handling and public confidence in the system, consideration of a consistent national approach across the states and review of the definition of “legal work” and “conveyancing work” in the Legal Practice Act 1996. Comment will be sought from stakeholders on a discussion paper to be released early next year.
The review arises out of the recent collapse of a company in Geelong where several million dollars of client money has been lost.
LIJ Dec 04
BH - So how has the case against Maric advanced the cause? especially given the Review of the Conveyancing Industry was already underway in the year 2004 and the outcome which was not unexpected.
Sunday, March 30, 2008
Friday, March 28, 2008
End this rort
WHEN Lydia Maric trounced the Law Institute of Victoria last week, it might have looked like the final chapter in this regrettable affair. But it's not.
We are now about to see the Law Institute avoid financial responsibility for the damage it has inflicted on this non-lawyer conveyancer.
The Law Institute's vain attempt to permanently restrict Maric's business has probably cost the best part of $1 million.
Maric's lawyers are still tallying up the full extent of her legal bills, but it looks like she will be presenting the Law Institute with a bill - for costs and damages - that could be anywhere between $400,000 and $500,000.
And if that is what this case has cost Maric, the Law Institute has probably incurred something similar.
But really, who cares? The entire cost of this ludicrous episode will be met using public money.
The Law Institute and its members - many of whom compete against conveyancers - will never need to put their hands in their pockets and take direct responsibility for what they have done to this woman.
That's the extraordinary result of the fact that the "regulatory" activities of the Law Institute are paid for using other people's money. The state Government allows the Law Institute to regulate its members using money that originates with solicitors' clients.
Anyone who is silly enough to leave their money sitting in a solicitor's trust account can take comfort from the fact that Victorian law allows the interest that is earned on that money to be skimmed off. Instead returning that interest to clients, a series of Victorian governments have adhered to the belief that the Law Institute has a much better idea of how it should be used - chasing people such as Maric, for example.
This rort has been on the nose for decades. But the Maric case shows that this arrangement has also undermined the normal rules of economics that encourage people not to take frivolous disputes to court.
If anything qualifies as frivolous, it is this case.
Remember, the lead judgment in the Court of Appeal said it would be "an exercise in futility" to grant the Law Institute the injunction it was seeking against Maric.
A new regulatory system is about to permit licensed conveyancers to compete on an equal footing with Victoria's solicitors for conveyancing work.
And the court noted that Maric has done everything she needs to do in order to qualify for a licence.
The dubious nature of this case was apparent from the beginning. In 2005, the organisation then known as the Victorian Legal Practice Board had discussions with Maric about the way she was conducting her business. After reaching an agreement, the Legal Practice Board told Maric in writing that the case against her had been finalised.
Maric was then given a lesson in what double jeopardy really means. The Law Institute was not satisfied with the settlement that had been reached with the Legal Practice Board. So the Law Institute jumped in and took her to court.
At the time, the Legal Practice Board's chief executive, Sue Walpole, contacted John Cain, who was then the Law Institute's chief executive.
Walpole urged the institute to drop its action. She told Cain that the board had made a conscious decision not to prosecute Maric, and because of that it was "arguably not sensible" for the Law Institute to take its own action against her. "John said there was nothing he could do and they had a good case," Walpole said at the time.
There is only one positive aspect to this affair. The Law Institute has since been stripped of the power to take unilateral court action against conveyancers.
The top regulator of the state's lawyers is now the Legal Services Board, whose chairman, Colin Neave, has told the Law Institute that he "would expect to be consulted by the LIV about any future decision to initiate action against people unqualified to perform legal work".
That will probably be enough to prevent the Law Institute embarking on another $1 million frolic.
But why should the public be left to pay for the Maric case?
The Law Institute was warned not to pursue her. It persisted when it knew conveyancers were about to be licensed and it justified its actions by pointing to the need to have a legal phrase defined by a court.
Those responsible for this case might have honestly believed they were acting in the public interest. But the interests of the legal profession are not always equivalent to the public interest.
PREJUDICE: Chris Merritt | March 28, 2008 | The Australian
Conveyancing Appeal Rejected
The Court of Appeal has rejected the LIV's request to grant a permanent injunction against conveyancer Lydia Maric whom it alleged was performing legal work in the preparation of vendors' statements, or s32 statements. The Court found that while there was no doubt the preparation of an s32 statement might, in some circumstances, require the provision of legal advice, this was not invariably the case. LIV CEO Mike Brett Young said the LIV felt it was important to test the law on the subject and would watch with interest the implementation of the yet-to-be proclaimed Conveyancers Act, which would regulate the profession.
Whose paying for the costs of this case?
Whose paying for the costs of this case?
Thursday, March 27, 2008
New search for consistent legislation
NATIONAL competition policy, the decade-long process that held states to account and fuelled far-reaching reforms and controversial privatisation, will be renewed under the Rudd Government.
COAG yesterday gave approval to revive the process, abandoned on the eve of the 2004 election in an acrimonious fight between the Howard government and the states.
Governments yesterday agreed to clear "political hurdles" to new nationally consistent laws in 27 areas this year before a raft of state elections begin from next year, including in Western Australia and Queensland.
The priority areas were likely to be occupational health and safety rules, payroll tax administration, building codes, trade and professional recognition, simplified accounting methods for the hospitality sector and Business Activity Statement (BAS) simplification.
Born out of a review by academic Fred Hilmer in 1992, National Competition Policy set benchmarks for state governments on services such as electricity, water and other infrastructure. Governments were encouraged to develop competition and not give unfair advantage to state-owned corporations.
Towards the end of the policy's life, there were calls to expand its reach to measuring performance on "human capital" such as health and education.
The COAG meeting yesterday started the step to reviving the process, expanding the role of the COAG Reform Council to monitor performance on health, education, housing and infrastructure, as well as setting out its deregulation agenda. There was no agreement yesterday on benchmarks and incentive payments.
The withholding of payments by the commonwealth under the old scheme for failing to meet reform benchmarks fuelled state opposition to the scheme.
COAG agreed yesterday to "accelerate and broaden" the regulation reduction agenda and to deliver significant improvements in Australia's competition, productivity and international competitiveness.
"Achieving these objectives would increase productivity in Australia by reducing the regulatory burden on business, particularly where regulation falls across jurisdictional boundaries, and by re-energising the micro-economic reform process," the COAG communique says.
Finance and Deregulation Minister Lindsay Tanner said acceptance of the implementation plan drawn up with his colleague Craig Emerson and the states gave a "unique opportunity to progress a reform agenda that stalled under the Howard government".
"COAG has also instructed the working group to go harder, faster and further in reforming business regulation," he said.
The new NCP benchmarks are likely to grow out of the 27 areas for deregulation agreed by the meeting yesterday.
As well as the priority areas such as OH&S rules, consumer and financial protection laws will be made uniform, as will food regulation, mine safety, electronic conveyancing and wine labelling regulations. Uniform standards for directors' liabilities were added to the list yesterday.
Premiers have agreed to accelerate national OH&S standards with a report back by July this year - a timetable that will put the NSW Labor Government on a collision course with state unions. NSW has higher standards than other states and the Iemma Government has previously been unable to win support for changes.
Sid Marris | March 27, 2008 | The Australian
COAG yesterday gave approval to revive the process, abandoned on the eve of the 2004 election in an acrimonious fight between the Howard government and the states.
Governments yesterday agreed to clear "political hurdles" to new nationally consistent laws in 27 areas this year before a raft of state elections begin from next year, including in Western Australia and Queensland.
The priority areas were likely to be occupational health and safety rules, payroll tax administration, building codes, trade and professional recognition, simplified accounting methods for the hospitality sector and Business Activity Statement (BAS) simplification.
Born out of a review by academic Fred Hilmer in 1992, National Competition Policy set benchmarks for state governments on services such as electricity, water and other infrastructure. Governments were encouraged to develop competition and not give unfair advantage to state-owned corporations.
Towards the end of the policy's life, there were calls to expand its reach to measuring performance on "human capital" such as health and education.
The COAG meeting yesterday started the step to reviving the process, expanding the role of the COAG Reform Council to monitor performance on health, education, housing and infrastructure, as well as setting out its deregulation agenda. There was no agreement yesterday on benchmarks and incentive payments.
The withholding of payments by the commonwealth under the old scheme for failing to meet reform benchmarks fuelled state opposition to the scheme.
COAG agreed yesterday to "accelerate and broaden" the regulation reduction agenda and to deliver significant improvements in Australia's competition, productivity and international competitiveness.
"Achieving these objectives would increase productivity in Australia by reducing the regulatory burden on business, particularly where regulation falls across jurisdictional boundaries, and by re-energising the micro-economic reform process," the COAG communique says.
Finance and Deregulation Minister Lindsay Tanner said acceptance of the implementation plan drawn up with his colleague Craig Emerson and the states gave a "unique opportunity to progress a reform agenda that stalled under the Howard government".
"COAG has also instructed the working group to go harder, faster and further in reforming business regulation," he said.
The new NCP benchmarks are likely to grow out of the 27 areas for deregulation agreed by the meeting yesterday.
As well as the priority areas such as OH&S rules, consumer and financial protection laws will be made uniform, as will food regulation, mine safety, electronic conveyancing and wine labelling regulations. Uniform standards for directors' liabilities were added to the list yesterday.
Premiers have agreed to accelerate national OH&S standards with a report back by July this year - a timetable that will put the NSW Labor Government on a collision course with state unions. NSW has higher standards than other states and the Iemma Government has previously been unable to win support for changes.
Sid Marris | March 27, 2008 | The Australian
Monday, March 24, 2008
LTO - an Anthropology
The anthropology of a workplace: the Victorian Land Titles Office
Author Evie Katz B.A. (Hons.) August 1996 Latrobe University
Extract from the Study
Chapter 8
Technological change: symbol and substance
Background
From its earliest beginnings the Land Titles Office used the materials and techniques of clerical work of the late nineteenth century. Certificates of title were penned on parchment made of sheepskin; later, paper, pens, ink, and rubber stamps were used. It was possible to identify the work of individual clerks according to their skill and style of penmanship. When typewriters were introduced into the Office the skill of penmanship decreased in importance. By 1961, when a large Xerox 1385 camera was purchased and titles could be mass produced by machine, the skill was obsolete.
In the area of draughting, hand facets were replaced by electric facets, and later, by electronic hand calculators, but such equipment was often in short supply. A retired draughting officer recalls:
The sub-Division section in my day had one electric calculator which was rostered between all of us - you could have it for one hour per day. At other times we used hand facets, electric facets, and dyeline machines. Juniors were given a parallel rule which cost three pounds, the equivalent of a junior draughtsman's weekly wage.
(Retired draughting officer)
Photocopying technology took over the need to draw charts. Thus, new technology has continually been introduced throughout the history of the Titles Office. The 1973-74 land boom in Melbourne meant an enormous increase in the volume of work for the Office. The options for coping with such upswings appeared to be to rationalise procedures, hire more staff, or introduce labour and time-saving technology.
Several reviews conducted during the 1970s recommended the technological option. The Victorian state government subsequently decided to computerise land information in the state. In the Titles Office this decision was translated into a project called The Titles Office Modernization Program, initiated in June 1981, with the core of the program being the automation of the Register. Below is a chronological outline of recent technology developments within the Office.
Table 8.1
Timeline of Titles Office Modernization Program
1970s Review teams examine LTO processes. Recommendation to automate the Register.
1981 The establishment of the Modernization Unit
1983 The LANDATA corporate plan includes Land Titles Office participation
1984 The first computerisation project - URDS
1985 The Land Titles Office moves from the Law Department to the Department of Property and Services.
1987 The Public Enquiry System goes on-line
1988 Land Information Centres established in regional Victoria (made possible by the new technology)
1989 Strata Titles conversion - Strata Search launched.
1989 Letter from the workplace union representatives to the director of Information Services (13 September) expressing concern that "neither the letter nor the spirit of the Technological Change Agreement has been followed." (on the subject of networking)
1990 The Department of Property and Services is disbanded. The Land Titles Office rejoins the Department of Justice (formerly the Law Department), while LANDATA goes to the Dept. of Finance. Funding cuts continue. People leaving jobs not replaced. Remote searching introduced.
1992 Funding cuts continue. Redundancy 'packages' offered to public servants. Computer titles introduced. Imaging system on line.
A 'Modernization Unit' was formed whose specific task was to computerise the manual tracking system, known as the Progress Book, which kept track of unregistered dealings as they passed through various sections of the Office. With the manual system, a team of clerks entered dealings as they were lodged, and assigned them a number according to their date of lodgement. The computer tracking system, known as the Unregistered
Dealings System, and henceforth referred to as URDS, automated the manual system, and in so doing, changed a work process which had played a key role in the Office culture. By 1989 lodging clerks were using computer terminals, and were partitioned off from each other. Interaction was now limited to individual clerk and individual client, mediated by a computer terminal.
< end extract >
The Complete Study can be viewed
Study
Link
Author Evie Katz B.A. (Hons.) August 1996 Latrobe University
Extract from the Study
Chapter 8
Technological change: symbol and substance
Background
From its earliest beginnings the Land Titles Office used the materials and techniques of clerical work of the late nineteenth century. Certificates of title were penned on parchment made of sheepskin; later, paper, pens, ink, and rubber stamps were used. It was possible to identify the work of individual clerks according to their skill and style of penmanship. When typewriters were introduced into the Office the skill of penmanship decreased in importance. By 1961, when a large Xerox 1385 camera was purchased and titles could be mass produced by machine, the skill was obsolete.
In the area of draughting, hand facets were replaced by electric facets, and later, by electronic hand calculators, but such equipment was often in short supply. A retired draughting officer recalls:
The sub-Division section in my day had one electric calculator which was rostered between all of us - you could have it for one hour per day. At other times we used hand facets, electric facets, and dyeline machines. Juniors were given a parallel rule which cost three pounds, the equivalent of a junior draughtsman's weekly wage.
(Retired draughting officer)
Photocopying technology took over the need to draw charts. Thus, new technology has continually been introduced throughout the history of the Titles Office. The 1973-74 land boom in Melbourne meant an enormous increase in the volume of work for the Office. The options for coping with such upswings appeared to be to rationalise procedures, hire more staff, or introduce labour and time-saving technology.
Several reviews conducted during the 1970s recommended the technological option. The Victorian state government subsequently decided to computerise land information in the state. In the Titles Office this decision was translated into a project called The Titles Office Modernization Program, initiated in June 1981, with the core of the program being the automation of the Register. Below is a chronological outline of recent technology developments within the Office.
Table 8.1
Timeline of Titles Office Modernization Program
1970s Review teams examine LTO processes. Recommendation to automate the Register.
1981 The establishment of the Modernization Unit
1983 The LANDATA corporate plan includes Land Titles Office participation
1984 The first computerisation project - URDS
1985 The Land Titles Office moves from the Law Department to the Department of Property and Services.
1987 The Public Enquiry System goes on-line
1988 Land Information Centres established in regional Victoria (made possible by the new technology)
1989 Strata Titles conversion - Strata Search launched.
1989 Letter from the workplace union representatives to the director of Information Services (13 September) expressing concern that "neither the letter nor the spirit of the Technological Change Agreement has been followed." (on the subject of networking)
1990 The Department of Property and Services is disbanded. The Land Titles Office rejoins the Department of Justice (formerly the Law Department), while LANDATA goes to the Dept. of Finance. Funding cuts continue. People leaving jobs not replaced. Remote searching introduced.
1992 Funding cuts continue. Redundancy 'packages' offered to public servants. Computer titles introduced. Imaging system on line.
A 'Modernization Unit' was formed whose specific task was to computerise the manual tracking system, known as the Progress Book, which kept track of unregistered dealings as they passed through various sections of the Office. With the manual system, a team of clerks entered dealings as they were lodged, and assigned them a number according to their date of lodgement. The computer tracking system, known as the Unregistered
Dealings System, and henceforth referred to as URDS, automated the manual system, and in so doing, changed a work process which had played a key role in the Office culture. By 1989 lodging clerks were using computer terminals, and were partitioned off from each other. Interaction was now limited to individual clerk and individual client, mediated by a computer terminal.
< end extract >
The Complete Study can be viewed
Study
Link
Torrens Title: Compensation For Loss
The NSW Law Reform Commission did an exceptional study to examine the extent of the State’s guarantee of title under the Torrens system and the manner in which it is provided. This was 20 years ago in 1988.
The 4 options put forward
The following is the extract on the options for reform
OPTION 1: ABOLITION OF STATE GUARANTEE
A. The case for abolition
6.4 The New South Wales Law Reform Commission is of the view that there is a case for abolishing State compensation for losses sustained during the title registration process. The original rationale for the Fund may no longer be sufficient to justify its retention.
6.5 In 1862, provision of a right to seek compensation for loss of title to land was considered an essential part of the Torrens scheme, because it complemented the new concept of statutory indefeasibility and because it was necessary to placate the legal profession which was strongly opposed to the Torrens system.1 The possibility of confiscation of land without redress was one of the chief grounds on which the legal profession based its opposition to the scheme. However there is no evidence that the concept of indefeasibility has caused significant loss. Even after the acceptance of immediate indefeasibility in 1967 when more claims could have been expected, there has been no significant increase in claims for loss resulting from fraud. The one area where State compensation for loss may be justified concerns losses resulting from staff errors in the Land Titles Office. Even in this area the ordinary common law principles of tort law should provide adequate remedies to the person deprived.
B. The Issue
6.6 To what extent should registration confer the right to compensation on an innocent person who suffers loss in a land transaction? The State does not pay compensation if a title is unregistered, however diligent an innocent purchaser may have been. Similarly the State does not compensate the innocent victim of wrongdoing or mischance in other fields of registration of property eg motor vehicle registration. Why should it do so when the loss is title to land?
OPTION 2: RETENTION OF STATE GUARANTEE: ELIMINATION OF LEGISLATIVE DEFICIENCIES
A. Introduction
6.7 Arguments in favour of some form of compensation by the State rest on the changes that the Torrens system has made to the position of those dealing in land. Firstly, compensation is provided for losses which could not have occurred under the common law system of conveyancing but which the Torrens system makes possible, principally through the ease of effecting transactions. Thus, by the introduction of a system in which the Register is crucial and title may be transferred by a relatively simple process, frauds and forgeries are more easily perpetrated. Secondly, an essential aspect of the Torrens system, indefeasibility, means that the effects of forgery, fraud and Land Titles Office errors are far greater than under Old System conveyancing. At common law remedies such as ejectment have been designed to uphold the title of a plaintiff against someone claiming title through a forged or fraudulent transaction. These remedies have been curtailed in the interest of ensuring certainty of title as recorded on the Register. Compensation by the State thus fills a vacuum created by the Torrens system and protects against the potential harshness of the system in operation.
B. What types of claims for compensation should be allowed?
6.8 If it is accepted that the Government should provide compensation for losses arising from the operation of the Torrens system, the circumstances in which compensation is paid need to be identified. It is necessary to consider whether the following ideals of a Torrens system should be pursued, namely:
* that the Register of title be likened to a “mirror” in that it should reflect accurately and completely all facts and matters relevant to the title to a parcel of land, and that the State should compensate anybody suffering loss as a result of their reliance on the Register; and
* that the State should compensate those persons who find themselves wrongfully deprived of a registered interest (eg by the fraud of a third party)?
6.9 Even from the time of the earliest Torrens legislation in South Australia these ideals have not been fulfilled. Certain interests such as equitable rights have been excluded from the Register and no compensation has been payable in respect of them. Similarly there is an ever increasing number and variety of statutory rights which exist quite independently of the Torrens legislation. Even though they override registered interests and do not require registration or notification, no compensation is payable for losses resulting from ignorance of their existence.
6.10 As is clear from the discussion in earlier chapters of this Paper, there are several deficiencies in the existing State guarantee system. The major deficiencies which have been the subject of comment are set out below and tentative proposals are put forward to remedy them.
1. Reliance on the Register
6.11 Should compensation be paid to a person who sustains loss by reliance on the Register when it proves to be inaccurate? This question divides into two subsidiary questions. Firstly, should the Government be responsible for loss caused by the errors of its officers (for example, when through error an easement is omitted from a title or a dealing recorded on an unaffected title)? Secondly, should Government responsibility extend to the losses caused by statutory interests created independently of the Torrens Register?
6.12 It is now accepted that the Government should be responsible for the actions of its employees. It is by no means clear, however, that loss caused by error in the Land Titles Office should be compensated through a specialised compensation system. This type of loss could easily be dealt with under ordinary tort principles. There would, however, be difficulties in grafting such principles to a purely statutory system. Unless the questions of duty and standard of care owed by the State were left completely to the courts to develop (which, considering the relative rarity of compensation claims, might take a long time), they would have to be specified by statute. A purely statutory remedy for compensation, such as presently exists, at least provides security by guaranteeing compensation in specified cases.
6.13 The second question is essentially concerned with those decisions and proposals of government departments and authorities which, whilst not amounting to proprietary interests in land, may affect the value, use or enjoyment of a parcel of land.
Some commentators argue that such decisions and proposals affecting land should be recorded in the Register and compensation paid for loss occurring if they exist but are not recorded. However, the more usual view is that interests of this type are not appropriate for recording in the Register since they amount to neither legal nor equitable interests and would clutter the Register. It is accepted conveyancing practice that a purchaser should conduct numerous enquiries (apart from title) to ascertain the existence of statutory interests affecting the subject property. Aside from the argument of “completeness of the Register” there is little reason why this practice should change and the Government be made liable if this information is not recorded on title but available from other sources.
2. Wrongful deprivation
6.14 Should compensation be paid to individuals wrongfully deprived of their land or an interest in land? The primary source of such loss is the fraud or negligence of a third party. This may occur, for example, where a Certificate of Title is stolen from a private residence and the registered proprietor’s signature is forged on a transfer (to a bona fide purchaser for value) and the transfer is registered. The innocent purchaser obtains an immediately indefeasible title pursuant to the forged transfer. The effect of a forgery in the Torrens system is therefore prejudicial to the title holder whereas under Old System, an innocent third party acquiring land through a forgery would gain nothing and the owners title would not be affected. As the Torrens system gives the State power to control use of the public Register and all titles recorded on it, it could be strongly argued that the State has a duty to compensate.
6.15 Where a registered proprietor voluntarily signs a transfer under the influence of fraud there is not such a strong case for compensation. In such cases the victim must be assumed to have control over what is occurring. Otherwise, the State might be required to compensate a proprietor who has exercised poor judgment or made an unfavourable bargain. However it would appear reasonable that compensation should be available for loss resulting from mistakes made by the Land Titles Office and for loss by forgery of an interest in land resulting from the registration of another interest.
3. Negligence of claimant’s solicitor or agent
6.16 Should there be an exception to the right to compensation in the case of negligence or fraud by the claimant’s solicitor or agent? The aim of that exception in Victoria is to provide an incentive to the claimant to exercise care in relation to his or her choice of an agent. The exception gives rise to some anomalies. If the case involves the fraud or negligence of the claimant’s solicitor or estate agent, the claimant who fails against the Registrar or Registrar General may ultimately recover from the Solicitors’ Guarantee Fund or the Estate Agents Guarantee Fund, or from the solicitor’s or real estate agent’s professional indemnity insurance. There is no alternative source of recovery in the case of other agents. Moreover, arguments can arise in relation to which fund should provide the compensation. It might be simpler to allow recovery against the Registrar or Registrar General, with these officers having full rights of subrogation against the claimant’s solicitor or agent including their guarantee funds. However, having regard to principles of agency law, the negligence of a solicitor or agent may be imputed to the claimant. There is no good reason for making the State responsible where a claimant’s loss is totally attributable to his or her own negligence. The tentative proposal is therefore that there should be an exception from the right to compensation in the case of loss totally attributable to the fraud or negligence of a solicitor or agent of the claimant. Furthermore, apportionment of damages should be available in those cases where a solicitor or agent has been partially responsible.
4. Contributory negligence of claimant
6.17 A further issue is whether there should be an exception in the case of contributory negligence by the claimant. A claimant may cause or contribute to a loss in a variety of ways. For example, a vendor may have signed a transfer without first obtaining payment, or may have been negligent in safeguarding the duplicate title. There seems no reason in principle why the Registrar should be required to compensate people who have caused or contributed to their own loss. It would be anomalous to deprive a person of a claim because of an agent’s negligence, but to allow a claim where the negligence was by the claimant. Hence it is proposed that there should be an exception from the night to compensation in the case of loss totally attributable to the negligence of the claimant. As with the proposal relating to the situation where a solicitor or agent has been partially responsible, apportionment of damages should occur where both the claimant and the Registrar or Registrar General have been partially responsible.
5. Exhaustion of other remedies
6.18 Should compensation be payable only after remedies have been exhausted against the person primarily responsible? Litigation is time consuming and expensive. A person who had an action against a third party might be unable to afford the risks associated with litigation. This problem would exist only in cases of forgeries by a stranger if the proposal for excluding or reducing claims involving forgery by a claimant’s solicitor or agent were accepted. It is therefore suggested that there should be no requirement that other remedies must be exhausted before compensation is payable. Furthermore, in these cases it would be better to adopt a rule of direct liability, allowing the Registrar or Registrar General to join the person or persons primarily responsible or to bring a separate action against such persons by way of subrogation.
6. Administrative procedures
6.19 Should compensation be payable administratively or only in the context of litigation? The New South Wales requirement that an action be brought in the courts against the Registrar General is time consuming and a waste of resources. Like the exhaustion of remedies requirement, it poses a barrier to obtaining compensation. The Victorian method, involving an application to the Registrar, is preferable. This would enable the majority of claims to be dealt with relatively quickly and for those cases presenting some difficulty to the Registrar or Registrar General to be dealt with by the Supreme Court. It would also be preferable if there were a prescribed period within which the Registar or Registar General must make a decision.
7. Assessment of compensation
6.20 A further issue is the basis on which damages should be assessed. The flexibility of the New South Wales test (determined judicially) appears preferable to that of the stringent statutory test adopted in Victoria. A claimant should be entitled to recover for actual loss. The amount of damages should therefore be assessed at an appropriate date. In times of rapid inflation the date of payment would be the appropriate date for valuation. On the other hand, if there has been a significant decrease in property values between the date of the actual loss and the date on which the damages are to be assessed, a claimant should not suffer accordingly. Thus the appropriate date for determining loss will depend on the facts of each case. The principle should be that compensation is for the actual loss suffered.
8. Time for making claims
6.21 The final issue concerns the time within which a claim should be made. It is currently unclear whether a 6 year limitation period applies in New South Wales and Victoria by virtue of the general limitation statutes. In any event, in this area it is undesirable that time limitations be framed by reference to the date of the cause of action. There is a significant possibility of latent claims arising from errors and misconduct long in the past. In Victoria, the Land Titles Office has a policy of not using the limitation period as a defence to a-claim. This supports the case for reform of the limitation period. It is therefore proposed that the period of limitation should be six years from the date on which the claimant became aware, or, but for his or her own default would have become aware, of the existence of the right to make a claim.
9. Contribution to the fund on lodgment of dealings
6.22 If the State is to continue in its role as insurer of Torrens titles, consideration should be given to reintroducing contributions to the Fund by a levy on dealings. Before this scheme was abolished in 1940, the Assurance Fund was supported by a levy of 1/2d in the pound (0.2083%) for all transmission applications and primary applications. The contribution would in effect be similar to an insurance premium.
OPTION 3: STATE GUARANTEE PROVIDED BY PRIVATE INSURER
6.23 Option 2, that the State continue in its role as insurer of Torrens titles but with substantial changes being made to the authorising legislation, might be more attractive if the private insurance sector were involved. In other words, instead of the Government acting as its own insurer, perhaps a feasible option is for the State to use the services of private insurance companies in the same way as do local councils. Claims would be processed by the private insurers which would pass the costs of the system on to the Government by way of a premium. This option would have the advantage of setting an independent agency between the claimant and the Land Titles Office. It may also encourage the Registrar General to adopt risk management more widely.
OPTION 4: TITLE INSURANCE ARRANGED BY REGISTERED PROPRIETOR
6.24 The option of individual registered proprietors being responsible for insuring against loss of their titles or interests in titles was examined in Chapter 2. The experience with private title insurance in America was also examined. In those limited areas where a Torrens system operates in the United States, finance companies generally require private title insurance in addition to the guarantee provided by the Assurance Fund. Where they co-exist, therefore, the two systems are complementary. Title insurance policies generally exempt coverage for the kinds of risks assumed by an Assurance Fund.
6.25 An option for New South Wales and Victoria is for private insurance, either optional or compulsory, to wholly replace the current State-backed insurance schemes. A variation would be for the State to continue its indemnity for some types of risks (eg Departmental error) while allowing or requiring registered proprietors to insure against loss or damage from fraud, forgeries, surveyors’ errors and the like.
Links to the Study
Introduction pdf
Rationale for Compensation pdf
The Current Position In New South Wales pdf
The Current Position in Victoria pdf
Does The Legislation In New South Wales Or Victoria Accord With The Principle Ideals Of A Torrens System? pdf
Options For Reform pdf
Crown Copyright 2002
Review of title insurance by Pamela O'Connor | 2002
DOUBLE INDEMNITY – TITLE INSURANCE AND THE TORRENS SYSTEM
Link to Pamela's paper
In 1989 the New South Wales and Victorian Law Reform Commissions issued a joint discussion paper and an issues paper for a review of ‘the extent of the State guarantee of Torrens titles and the manner in which it is provided’.2 The issues paper indicated that the two Commissions proposed jointly to consider, inter alia, ‘whether private title insurance could be substituted for the existing State guarantee of Torrens titles’,3 and also whether it could complement the existing statutory Torrens indemnity schemes.4 Public submissions were invited on these and other matters. The Victorian Commission was disbanded before it could complete its reference. The New South Wales Commission continued alone and delivered its final report in 1996.
In the end, the contribution that private insurance could make to the operation of the Torrens System received scant consideration from the Commission, which recommended instead that the State’s statutory scheme should be remodeled
Given that a title insurer is now operating in Australia and New Zealand, it is timely to reconsider how private title insurance may affect the Torrens System. Will it contribute to achieving the twin objects of the Torrens System: to provide security of title, and to facilitate transactions by making them quick, cheap and safe?11 Along with the opportunities we must also consider possible threats: will the establishment of a private title insurance industry or the marketing of its products harm our State-administered system of registration of title, or the quality of our conveyancing services?
Part of Pamela's conclusions included
Double Indemnity - Title Insurance and the Torrens System (2003) 3(1) QUTLJJ
What if the national system promoted electronic payment followed by electronic registration underwritten by a TI policy? That is payment and registration are not contemporaneus. In fact what has changed?
The 4 options put forward
- Abolition of the State guarantee of Torrens title.
- Retention of State guarantee but improvement of the current compensation schemes.
- Acceptance by registered proprietors of responsibility for insurance of Torrens titles (either in addition to or in substitution for the present State guarantee).
- Continuation of the State’s role as insurer of Torrens titles, but with the insurance provided by private insurance companies.
The following is the extract on the options for reform
OPTION 1: ABOLITION OF STATE GUARANTEE
A. The case for abolition
6.4 The New South Wales Law Reform Commission is of the view that there is a case for abolishing State compensation for losses sustained during the title registration process. The original rationale for the Fund may no longer be sufficient to justify its retention.
6.5 In 1862, provision of a right to seek compensation for loss of title to land was considered an essential part of the Torrens scheme, because it complemented the new concept of statutory indefeasibility and because it was necessary to placate the legal profession which was strongly opposed to the Torrens system.1 The possibility of confiscation of land without redress was one of the chief grounds on which the legal profession based its opposition to the scheme. However there is no evidence that the concept of indefeasibility has caused significant loss. Even after the acceptance of immediate indefeasibility in 1967 when more claims could have been expected, there has been no significant increase in claims for loss resulting from fraud. The one area where State compensation for loss may be justified concerns losses resulting from staff errors in the Land Titles Office. Even in this area the ordinary common law principles of tort law should provide adequate remedies to the person deprived.
B. The Issue
6.6 To what extent should registration confer the right to compensation on an innocent person who suffers loss in a land transaction? The State does not pay compensation if a title is unregistered, however diligent an innocent purchaser may have been. Similarly the State does not compensate the innocent victim of wrongdoing or mischance in other fields of registration of property eg motor vehicle registration. Why should it do so when the loss is title to land?
OPTION 2: RETENTION OF STATE GUARANTEE: ELIMINATION OF LEGISLATIVE DEFICIENCIES
A. Introduction
6.7 Arguments in favour of some form of compensation by the State rest on the changes that the Torrens system has made to the position of those dealing in land. Firstly, compensation is provided for losses which could not have occurred under the common law system of conveyancing but which the Torrens system makes possible, principally through the ease of effecting transactions. Thus, by the introduction of a system in which the Register is crucial and title may be transferred by a relatively simple process, frauds and forgeries are more easily perpetrated. Secondly, an essential aspect of the Torrens system, indefeasibility, means that the effects of forgery, fraud and Land Titles Office errors are far greater than under Old System conveyancing. At common law remedies such as ejectment have been designed to uphold the title of a plaintiff against someone claiming title through a forged or fraudulent transaction. These remedies have been curtailed in the interest of ensuring certainty of title as recorded on the Register. Compensation by the State thus fills a vacuum created by the Torrens system and protects against the potential harshness of the system in operation.
B. What types of claims for compensation should be allowed?
6.8 If it is accepted that the Government should provide compensation for losses arising from the operation of the Torrens system, the circumstances in which compensation is paid need to be identified. It is necessary to consider whether the following ideals of a Torrens system should be pursued, namely:
* that the Register of title be likened to a “mirror” in that it should reflect accurately and completely all facts and matters relevant to the title to a parcel of land, and that the State should compensate anybody suffering loss as a result of their reliance on the Register; and
* that the State should compensate those persons who find themselves wrongfully deprived of a registered interest (eg by the fraud of a third party)?
6.9 Even from the time of the earliest Torrens legislation in South Australia these ideals have not been fulfilled. Certain interests such as equitable rights have been excluded from the Register and no compensation has been payable in respect of them. Similarly there is an ever increasing number and variety of statutory rights which exist quite independently of the Torrens legislation. Even though they override registered interests and do not require registration or notification, no compensation is payable for losses resulting from ignorance of their existence.
6.10 As is clear from the discussion in earlier chapters of this Paper, there are several deficiencies in the existing State guarantee system. The major deficiencies which have been the subject of comment are set out below and tentative proposals are put forward to remedy them.
1. Reliance on the Register
6.11 Should compensation be paid to a person who sustains loss by reliance on the Register when it proves to be inaccurate? This question divides into two subsidiary questions. Firstly, should the Government be responsible for loss caused by the errors of its officers (for example, when through error an easement is omitted from a title or a dealing recorded on an unaffected title)? Secondly, should Government responsibility extend to the losses caused by statutory interests created independently of the Torrens Register?
6.12 It is now accepted that the Government should be responsible for the actions of its employees. It is by no means clear, however, that loss caused by error in the Land Titles Office should be compensated through a specialised compensation system. This type of loss could easily be dealt with under ordinary tort principles. There would, however, be difficulties in grafting such principles to a purely statutory system. Unless the questions of duty and standard of care owed by the State were left completely to the courts to develop (which, considering the relative rarity of compensation claims, might take a long time), they would have to be specified by statute. A purely statutory remedy for compensation, such as presently exists, at least provides security by guaranteeing compensation in specified cases.
6.13 The second question is essentially concerned with those decisions and proposals of government departments and authorities which, whilst not amounting to proprietary interests in land, may affect the value, use or enjoyment of a parcel of land.
Some commentators argue that such decisions and proposals affecting land should be recorded in the Register and compensation paid for loss occurring if they exist but are not recorded. However, the more usual view is that interests of this type are not appropriate for recording in the Register since they amount to neither legal nor equitable interests and would clutter the Register. It is accepted conveyancing practice that a purchaser should conduct numerous enquiries (apart from title) to ascertain the existence of statutory interests affecting the subject property. Aside from the argument of “completeness of the Register” there is little reason why this practice should change and the Government be made liable if this information is not recorded on title but available from other sources.
2. Wrongful deprivation
6.14 Should compensation be paid to individuals wrongfully deprived of their land or an interest in land? The primary source of such loss is the fraud or negligence of a third party. This may occur, for example, where a Certificate of Title is stolen from a private residence and the registered proprietor’s signature is forged on a transfer (to a bona fide purchaser for value) and the transfer is registered. The innocent purchaser obtains an immediately indefeasible title pursuant to the forged transfer. The effect of a forgery in the Torrens system is therefore prejudicial to the title holder whereas under Old System, an innocent third party acquiring land through a forgery would gain nothing and the owners title would not be affected. As the Torrens system gives the State power to control use of the public Register and all titles recorded on it, it could be strongly argued that the State has a duty to compensate.
6.15 Where a registered proprietor voluntarily signs a transfer under the influence of fraud there is not such a strong case for compensation. In such cases the victim must be assumed to have control over what is occurring. Otherwise, the State might be required to compensate a proprietor who has exercised poor judgment or made an unfavourable bargain. However it would appear reasonable that compensation should be available for loss resulting from mistakes made by the Land Titles Office and for loss by forgery of an interest in land resulting from the registration of another interest.
3. Negligence of claimant’s solicitor or agent
6.16 Should there be an exception to the right to compensation in the case of negligence or fraud by the claimant’s solicitor or agent? The aim of that exception in Victoria is to provide an incentive to the claimant to exercise care in relation to his or her choice of an agent. The exception gives rise to some anomalies. If the case involves the fraud or negligence of the claimant’s solicitor or estate agent, the claimant who fails against the Registrar or Registrar General may ultimately recover from the Solicitors’ Guarantee Fund or the Estate Agents Guarantee Fund, or from the solicitor’s or real estate agent’s professional indemnity insurance. There is no alternative source of recovery in the case of other agents. Moreover, arguments can arise in relation to which fund should provide the compensation. It might be simpler to allow recovery against the Registrar or Registrar General, with these officers having full rights of subrogation against the claimant’s solicitor or agent including their guarantee funds. However, having regard to principles of agency law, the negligence of a solicitor or agent may be imputed to the claimant. There is no good reason for making the State responsible where a claimant’s loss is totally attributable to his or her own negligence. The tentative proposal is therefore that there should be an exception from the right to compensation in the case of loss totally attributable to the fraud or negligence of a solicitor or agent of the claimant. Furthermore, apportionment of damages should be available in those cases where a solicitor or agent has been partially responsible.
4. Contributory negligence of claimant
6.17 A further issue is whether there should be an exception in the case of contributory negligence by the claimant. A claimant may cause or contribute to a loss in a variety of ways. For example, a vendor may have signed a transfer without first obtaining payment, or may have been negligent in safeguarding the duplicate title. There seems no reason in principle why the Registrar should be required to compensate people who have caused or contributed to their own loss. It would be anomalous to deprive a person of a claim because of an agent’s negligence, but to allow a claim where the negligence was by the claimant. Hence it is proposed that there should be an exception from the night to compensation in the case of loss totally attributable to the negligence of the claimant. As with the proposal relating to the situation where a solicitor or agent has been partially responsible, apportionment of damages should occur where both the claimant and the Registrar or Registrar General have been partially responsible.
5. Exhaustion of other remedies
6.18 Should compensation be payable only after remedies have been exhausted against the person primarily responsible? Litigation is time consuming and expensive. A person who had an action against a third party might be unable to afford the risks associated with litigation. This problem would exist only in cases of forgeries by a stranger if the proposal for excluding or reducing claims involving forgery by a claimant’s solicitor or agent were accepted. It is therefore suggested that there should be no requirement that other remedies must be exhausted before compensation is payable. Furthermore, in these cases it would be better to adopt a rule of direct liability, allowing the Registrar or Registrar General to join the person or persons primarily responsible or to bring a separate action against such persons by way of subrogation.
6. Administrative procedures
6.19 Should compensation be payable administratively or only in the context of litigation? The New South Wales requirement that an action be brought in the courts against the Registrar General is time consuming and a waste of resources. Like the exhaustion of remedies requirement, it poses a barrier to obtaining compensation. The Victorian method, involving an application to the Registrar, is preferable. This would enable the majority of claims to be dealt with relatively quickly and for those cases presenting some difficulty to the Registrar or Registrar General to be dealt with by the Supreme Court. It would also be preferable if there were a prescribed period within which the Registar or Registar General must make a decision.
7. Assessment of compensation
6.20 A further issue is the basis on which damages should be assessed. The flexibility of the New South Wales test (determined judicially) appears preferable to that of the stringent statutory test adopted in Victoria. A claimant should be entitled to recover for actual loss. The amount of damages should therefore be assessed at an appropriate date. In times of rapid inflation the date of payment would be the appropriate date for valuation. On the other hand, if there has been a significant decrease in property values between the date of the actual loss and the date on which the damages are to be assessed, a claimant should not suffer accordingly. Thus the appropriate date for determining loss will depend on the facts of each case. The principle should be that compensation is for the actual loss suffered.
8. Time for making claims
6.21 The final issue concerns the time within which a claim should be made. It is currently unclear whether a 6 year limitation period applies in New South Wales and Victoria by virtue of the general limitation statutes. In any event, in this area it is undesirable that time limitations be framed by reference to the date of the cause of action. There is a significant possibility of latent claims arising from errors and misconduct long in the past. In Victoria, the Land Titles Office has a policy of not using the limitation period as a defence to a-claim. This supports the case for reform of the limitation period. It is therefore proposed that the period of limitation should be six years from the date on which the claimant became aware, or, but for his or her own default would have become aware, of the existence of the right to make a claim.
9. Contribution to the fund on lodgment of dealings
6.22 If the State is to continue in its role as insurer of Torrens titles, consideration should be given to reintroducing contributions to the Fund by a levy on dealings. Before this scheme was abolished in 1940, the Assurance Fund was supported by a levy of 1/2d in the pound (0.2083%) for all transmission applications and primary applications. The contribution would in effect be similar to an insurance premium.
OPTION 3: STATE GUARANTEE PROVIDED BY PRIVATE INSURER
6.23 Option 2, that the State continue in its role as insurer of Torrens titles but with substantial changes being made to the authorising legislation, might be more attractive if the private insurance sector were involved. In other words, instead of the Government acting as its own insurer, perhaps a feasible option is for the State to use the services of private insurance companies in the same way as do local councils. Claims would be processed by the private insurers which would pass the costs of the system on to the Government by way of a premium. This option would have the advantage of setting an independent agency between the claimant and the Land Titles Office. It may also encourage the Registrar General to adopt risk management more widely.
OPTION 4: TITLE INSURANCE ARRANGED BY REGISTERED PROPRIETOR
6.24 The option of individual registered proprietors being responsible for insuring against loss of their titles or interests in titles was examined in Chapter 2. The experience with private title insurance in America was also examined. In those limited areas where a Torrens system operates in the United States, finance companies generally require private title insurance in addition to the guarantee provided by the Assurance Fund. Where they co-exist, therefore, the two systems are complementary. Title insurance policies generally exempt coverage for the kinds of risks assumed by an Assurance Fund.
6.25 An option for New South Wales and Victoria is for private insurance, either optional or compulsory, to wholly replace the current State-backed insurance schemes. A variation would be for the State to continue its indemnity for some types of risks (eg Departmental error) while allowing or requiring registered proprietors to insure against loss or damage from fraud, forgeries, surveyors’ errors and the like.
Links to the Study
Introduction pdf
Rationale for Compensation pdf
The Current Position In New South Wales pdf
The Current Position in Victoria pdf
Does The Legislation In New South Wales Or Victoria Accord With The Principle Ideals Of A Torrens System? pdf
Options For Reform pdf
Crown Copyright 2002
Review of title insurance by Pamela O'Connor | 2002
DOUBLE INDEMNITY – TITLE INSURANCE AND THE TORRENS SYSTEM
Link to Pamela's paper
In 1989 the New South Wales and Victorian Law Reform Commissions issued a joint discussion paper and an issues paper for a review of ‘the extent of the State guarantee of Torrens titles and the manner in which it is provided’.2 The issues paper indicated that the two Commissions proposed jointly to consider, inter alia, ‘whether private title insurance could be substituted for the existing State guarantee of Torrens titles’,3 and also whether it could complement the existing statutory Torrens indemnity schemes.4 Public submissions were invited on these and other matters. The Victorian Commission was disbanded before it could complete its reference. The New South Wales Commission continued alone and delivered its final report in 1996.
In the end, the contribution that private insurance could make to the operation of the Torrens System received scant consideration from the Commission, which recommended instead that the State’s statutory scheme should be remodeled
Given that a title insurer is now operating in Australia and New Zealand, it is timely to reconsider how private title insurance may affect the Torrens System. Will it contribute to achieving the twin objects of the Torrens System: to provide security of title, and to facilitate transactions by making them quick, cheap and safe?11 Along with the opportunities we must also consider possible threats: will the establishment of a private title insurance industry or the marketing of its products harm our State-administered system of registration of title, or the quality of our conveyancing services?
Part of Pamela's conclusions included
This paper has focussed on the first option, and concluded that private title insurance can contribute to the attainment of the economic objects of the Torrens System. Insurance can promote the ‘security of title’ object to the extent that it enables owners, purchasers and lenders to transfer to an insurer certain risks that the Torrens System leaves with them, namely:
- loss in the pre-registration period arising from a matter that renders the interest void or unenforceable, or from loss of priority to a competing interest;
- that the insured’s title will be subject to certain types of overriding interests;
- that the insured will suffer loss through the fraud, forgery or negligence of his or her solicitor, or agent, or through a loss to which the insured has contributed through his or her own negligence, and that in some jurisdictions, indemnity will be excluded or reduced on ‘fault’ grounds.
What if the national system promoted electronic payment followed by electronic registration underwritten by a TI policy? That is payment and registration are not contemporaneus. In fact what has changed?
Monday, March 17, 2008
Murray Thompson MP - Hansard
Mr THOMPSON (Sandringham) — The annual statement of government intentions of the Brumby government is entitled Delivering for Victoria, but there are a number of key areas where there has been no delivery. One key example would be the proposed conveyancing reform system of Victoria.
Victoria has spent some $40 million on a system that cannot be used. It was warned four years ago by a number of stakeholders that if the project proceeded, it would not be able to be used. Since its launch last November not one settlement has taken place under the guise of this new system, but it is costing Victorian consumers many thousands of dollars per day as a result of the government’s failure to actually have the system enacted; people are still reliant on a paper-based system.
There has been widespread commentary on this issue. Rick Burbidge’s comment in the Australian was:
"The Victorian Government has forced the state’s home buyers to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in extra government fees because disputes have hobbled its $40 million electronic conveyancing system.
As a result, thousands of people who have bought and sold property since November have had no alternative but to use the old paper-based conveyancing system that has been hit by government fee increases of up to 32 per cent."
Those disputes, which have been dragging on since last year, have led to a boycott of the Electronic Conveyancing Victoria project by the major banks and most of the state’s solicitors. Yet the government has still failed over the last months to work through and broker a solution. It has failed for four years to properly reconcile the interests of all stakeholders in the development of a key national system. The notion that the Brumby government is delivering for Victoria fails at the first jump.
Victoria has spent some $40 million on a system that cannot be used. It was warned four years ago by a number of stakeholders that if the project proceeded, it would not be able to be used. Since its launch last November not one settlement has taken place under the guise of this new system, but it is costing Victorian consumers many thousands of dollars per day as a result of the government’s failure to actually have the system enacted; people are still reliant on a paper-based system.
There has been widespread commentary on this issue. Rick Burbidge’s comment in the Australian was:
"The Victorian Government has forced the state’s home buyers to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in extra government fees because disputes have hobbled its $40 million electronic conveyancing system.
As a result, thousands of people who have bought and sold property since November have had no alternative but to use the old paper-based conveyancing system that has been hit by government fee increases of up to 32 per cent."
Those disputes, which have been dragging on since last year, have led to a boycott of the Electronic Conveyancing Victoria project by the major banks and most of the state’s solicitors. Yet the government has still failed over the last months to work through and broker a solution. It has failed for four years to properly reconcile the interests of all stakeholders in the development of a key national system. The notion that the Brumby government is delivering for Victoria fails at the first jump.
Sunday, March 16, 2008
ECV - No 1
ECV will have its first electronic settlement for a sale and purchase of a property in Victoria. This is a remarkable milestone. It is a first for an electronic financial settlement and registration.
David Rainbow, conveyancer, has created the first live ELF. David acts for the Purchaser. The Vendor has clear title and is represented by Gail Nancarrow. The lender is Bendigo Bank. Both conveyancers are fully subscribed members of EC.
As David said "the planets and the stars must have been aligned" to pull this one off. The odds were quite large given only Bendigo and Mecu are financial institution subscribers and a handful of legal / conveyancing subscribers are registered
I am told the settlement is due in April 2008.
Congrats
David Rainbow, conveyancer, has created the first live ELF. David acts for the Purchaser. The Vendor has clear title and is represented by Gail Nancarrow. The lender is Bendigo Bank. Both conveyancers are fully subscribed members of EC.
As David said "the planets and the stars must have been aligned" to pull this one off. The odds were quite large given only Bendigo and Mecu are financial institution subscribers and a handful of legal / conveyancing subscribers are registered
I am told the settlement is due in April 2008.
Congrats
Ajilon and the VIC Government Celebrate
Ajilon and the VIC Government Celebrate on the Eve of the Nation's First Online Land Transaction
The current ‘paper chase’ that buyers and sellers of property in Australia must endure is soon to become a thing of the past for those living in Victoria.
Last month Ajilon General Manager, Bill Leropoulos, and his staff, Rick Dixon and Jim Walker, hosted a function to celebrate a key milestone achievement on the five-year long project they have been managing for their client, the Department of Sustainability and Environment (DSE), which will see this become a reality by January 2008.
The DSE’s Electronic Conveyancing (EC) System is a national first and will soon revolutionise the way property is bought and sold in Victoria, enabling those in the industry to complete all facets of their property transactions online.
Furthermore, a recent analysis by the Queensland Government revealed that EC System has enough depth and flexibility to accommodate Australia’s future electronic conveyancing needs, if it was ever rolled out nationally.
Rick Dixon, Project Manager of the EC project, shared the impetus behind last month’s function.
“We wanted to get all of the project stakeholders together to celebrate EC Release 2 going live, which involved the integration of the ASX and its Financial Settlement Manager.
“What we delivered was a world first and a major achievement for everyone on the project - it was one of those big milestones we had to reach, tying in many complex business, legal and technical aspects and we’ve done that, very successfully!”
As a long term partner of the DSE, Ajilon offered to host the celebration function for the key project stakeholders as a way of recognising the hard work each had put in.
The 60 guests included senior representatives from the DSE, including CIO Fiona Delahunt, along with representatives from partnering government agencies, such as Paul Broderick (Commissioner of the State Revenue Office) and Sue Nolen (Assistant Solicitor at the Victorian Government Solicitors’ Office).
Also in attendance were staff from Object Consulting, who were responsible for the application development, and a number of contractors who all played a role in helping EC Release 2 go live.
Fiona Delahunt gave a brief speech on the day, praising Ajilon for the role it had played in successfully delivering the difficult project for the Victorian Government.
The first complete, end-to-end online property transfer through the EC System will occur sometime next month. The DSE are planning an official media launch to mark the occasion.
Ajilon will continue to project manage the initiative for the DSE, until it can be transitioned into the Department’s core functions in 2008.
Ajilon
The current ‘paper chase’ that buyers and sellers of property in Australia must endure is soon to become a thing of the past for those living in Victoria.
Last month Ajilon General Manager, Bill Leropoulos, and his staff, Rick Dixon and Jim Walker, hosted a function to celebrate a key milestone achievement on the five-year long project they have been managing for their client, the Department of Sustainability and Environment (DSE), which will see this become a reality by January 2008.
The DSE’s Electronic Conveyancing (EC) System is a national first and will soon revolutionise the way property is bought and sold in Victoria, enabling those in the industry to complete all facets of their property transactions online.
Furthermore, a recent analysis by the Queensland Government revealed that EC System has enough depth and flexibility to accommodate Australia’s future electronic conveyancing needs, if it was ever rolled out nationally.
Rick Dixon, Project Manager of the EC project, shared the impetus behind last month’s function.
“We wanted to get all of the project stakeholders together to celebrate EC Release 2 going live, which involved the integration of the ASX and its Financial Settlement Manager.
“What we delivered was a world first and a major achievement for everyone on the project - it was one of those big milestones we had to reach, tying in many complex business, legal and technical aspects and we’ve done that, very successfully!”
As a long term partner of the DSE, Ajilon offered to host the celebration function for the key project stakeholders as a way of recognising the hard work each had put in.
The 60 guests included senior representatives from the DSE, including CIO Fiona Delahunt, along with representatives from partnering government agencies, such as Paul Broderick (Commissioner of the State Revenue Office) and Sue Nolen (Assistant Solicitor at the Victorian Government Solicitors’ Office).
Also in attendance were staff from Object Consulting, who were responsible for the application development, and a number of contractors who all played a role in helping EC Release 2 go live.
Fiona Delahunt gave a brief speech on the day, praising Ajilon for the role it had played in successfully delivering the difficult project for the Victorian Government.
The first complete, end-to-end online property transfer through the EC System will occur sometime next month. The DSE are planning an official media launch to mark the occasion.
Ajilon will continue to project manage the initiative for the DSE, until it can be transitioned into the Department’s core functions in 2008.
Ajilon
Friday, March 14, 2008
1 system or 8 or 16?
The push for a new forum comes as the Commonwealth Attorney General Mr McClelland moves to prevent one major harmonisation project from falling apart.
Victoria and Queensland are trying to torpedo two-year old plans for a national electronic conveyancing system. The project aims to come in 2010 and would enable paperless transfers of land seamlessly across all jurisdictions.
At a meeting last week, chaired by former NSW premier Bob Carr, the two states drew up plans to kill off the idea (of the single national electronic conveyancing scheme)
The federal Attorney-General described the meeting as regrettable and an example of people pursuing fiefdom interests. "There's a need for a reality check," Mr McClelland said. "We don't want to create a version of the different rail gauges, with people having their separate and discrete systems that can't talk to each other, That would be vandalism of a very important project."
Under Victoria's and Queensland's plan, software developed in Victoria - which the private sector has refused to use - would be rolled out individually by each state. But NSW, banks and law societies insist all states keep to the original plan, which envisaged a national entity to handle all property transfers. They argue it is essential to avoid "jurisdictional creep" leading to discrepancies in separately run state systems.
Mr McClelland said he would use the meeting of attorneys-general to request states to put their cards on the table and declare their agendas, with a view to possibly elevating the project onto the COAG agenda. Victoria led the charge to reject the two-year-old plans in the hope of salvaging its own $30 million online conveyancing project.
Matthew Drummond | The Fin Review | 14 March 2008
Extract from an Article on national legal uniformity
Victoria and Queensland are trying to torpedo two-year old plans for a national electronic conveyancing system. The project aims to come in 2010 and would enable paperless transfers of land seamlessly across all jurisdictions.
At a meeting last week, chaired by former NSW premier Bob Carr, the two states drew up plans to kill off the idea (of the single national electronic conveyancing scheme)
The federal Attorney-General described the meeting as regrettable and an example of people pursuing fiefdom interests. "There's a need for a reality check," Mr McClelland said. "We don't want to create a version of the different rail gauges, with people having their separate and discrete systems that can't talk to each other, That would be vandalism of a very important project."
Under Victoria's and Queensland's plan, software developed in Victoria - which the private sector has refused to use - would be rolled out individually by each state. But NSW, banks and law societies insist all states keep to the original plan, which envisaged a national entity to handle all property transfers. They argue it is essential to avoid "jurisdictional creep" leading to discrepancies in separately run state systems.
Mr McClelland said he would use the meeting of attorneys-general to request states to put their cards on the table and declare their agendas, with a view to possibly elevating the project onto the COAG agenda. Victoria led the charge to reject the two-year-old plans in the hope of salvaging its own $30 million online conveyancing project.
Matthew Drummond | The Fin Review | 14 March 2008
Extract from an Article on national legal uniformity
Electronic future
IT is still too early to be sure, but it looks as though those who want to build a national electronic conveyancing system have found a friend in Robert McClelland. The federal attorney-general, unlike some state government bureaucrats, seems to understand that e-conveyancing will never work unless the interests of business are addressed. The test will be whether McClelland is prepared to exert a little muscle to persuade his state counterparts to embrace the same approach.
Mr McCleland planned to talk to South Australia's AG Mr Atkinson at this month's meeting of the standing committee of attorneys-general to explain the benefits of the national system.
"It is clear that to progress these negotiations in some instances you have to look for the WIIFM (what's in it for me) factor and I will be sitting down to explain the bigger picture," Mr McClelland said.
He hoped to outline a broad range of "incentives or inducements that would ensure SA and the other states were all singing from the same song sheet". The federal Government, with the support of the Northern Territory, had placed the development of a national electronic conveyancing system on the SCAG agenda, Mr McClelland said. It was "regrettable" that state government officials had met last week to develop their own plans for e-conveyancing without including representatives of business users, he said. "If we are going to bed this down we need everyone on board the ship," he said, "rather than having some feeling they have been left at the wharf."
Mr McClelland said he had already had discussions on e-conveyancing and was considering a number of proposals about the future structure of the system. "A joint enterprise arrangement in which the states and territories, essentially -- and possibly the commonwealth -- have an interest would be a good thing. "To that extent I note there was a similar recommendation coming out of the meeting chaired by Bob Carr last week," he said. "So the reality is that all those involved are thinking in similar and constructive terms.
"My job is going to have to be to say to everyone: be careful that these discussions do not fragment and little rival blocs develop," Mr McClelland said. This month's meeting with his state counterparts would be an important opportunity to refocus the attention of the states on e-conveyancing, he said.
Chris Merritt | The Australian | 14 March 2008
Mr McCleland planned to talk to South Australia's AG Mr Atkinson at this month's meeting of the standing committee of attorneys-general to explain the benefits of the national system.
"It is clear that to progress these negotiations in some instances you have to look for the WIIFM (what's in it for me) factor and I will be sitting down to explain the bigger picture," Mr McClelland said.
He hoped to outline a broad range of "incentives or inducements that would ensure SA and the other states were all singing from the same song sheet". The federal Government, with the support of the Northern Territory, had placed the development of a national electronic conveyancing system on the SCAG agenda, Mr McClelland said. It was "regrettable" that state government officials had met last week to develop their own plans for e-conveyancing without including representatives of business users, he said. "If we are going to bed this down we need everyone on board the ship," he said, "rather than having some feeling they have been left at the wharf."
Mr McClelland said he had already had discussions on e-conveyancing and was considering a number of proposals about the future structure of the system. "A joint enterprise arrangement in which the states and territories, essentially -- and possibly the commonwealth -- have an interest would be a good thing. "To that extent I note there was a similar recommendation coming out of the meeting chaired by Bob Carr last week," he said. "So the reality is that all those involved are thinking in similar and constructive terms.
"My job is going to have to be to say to everyone: be careful that these discussions do not fragment and little rival blocs develop," Mr McClelland said. This month's meeting with his state counterparts would be an important opportunity to refocus the attention of the states on e-conveyancing, he said.
Chris Merritt | The Australian | 14 March 2008
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
Banks - register your complaints
Seriously or even not so seriously, what business would put its customers on hold for 20 minutes? What business, by the way, would tell its customers please fax me copies of the contract and transfer, then proceed to routinely lose those same documents, to the point where they must be re-faxed several times. What business would sell you a loan, yet is unable to book in the settlement til the actual day of settlement, at best the day before?
No prizes for guessing, its our major banks.
And the worst offender, by a long mile, is the Commonwealth Bank.
That's the treatment dished out to their customers and the customer's representatives. And this is business as usual for the majors. Seriously the banks and its executives would be aware of the problem. But what are they doing about it? Or do they just keep on getting away with it? Or are they just as frustrated as all of us.
The result of a survey and the responses from 50 conveyancers and lawyers is the banks treat their customers and mostly the customers' representatives with a universal disdain. Or my guess is the system's woes are so bad, the banks cannot recruit and retain staff with the experience and qualifications required for the job. The situation is worsening year by year, month by month as the banks' service is spiralling down. This too is having an impact on Law firms and Conveyancing companies recruiting and retaining qualified and experienced staff. It is not an industry that can readily attract or retain young individuals. Their attentions can easily be diverted to other more attractive industries. This is clearly unsustainable.
In a report that was far worse than I expected, the results of the survey make grim reading. Here's the link to the results of the survey. Thanks to those who responded to the survey. Your message is being passed along.
I cant quote everyone, so here is a response from Nick
"I am sick of wasting my time on things that should be in order, sick fixing things that the Bank clearly stuffs up. Sick of organizing and filling out bank forms (i.e. discharge authorities) which clearly is a bank document that should be completed by the Bank. Sick of answering questions for the Bank when they could pick up the phone and ask the client directly Sick of being charged reattendence settlement fees when the error is from the Bank Sick of Promises of call backs which hardly ever occur. My Time is precious and the Banks clearly waste my time for no other reason bar lack of care and incompetence."
20 plus years ago, two other markets, the share market and the money market, recognised and foresaw the problems with settlements and invoked technical solutions that reformed their industries. The solutions were all in the pre-internet days. The results transformed their industries. The solutions were put in place in recognition of what would happen if change was not instigated. It is remarkable to think the ASX introduced SEATS the day before the stock market crash in October 1987. This was followed by CHESS and what is called today T+3 (settlements within 3 days of the actual trade). Ditto Austraclear which reformed the money markets for trading bills and bonds. Austraclear is same day electronic trading and financial settlement. I recall the days very clearly as I ran the settlements side of a merchant bank in the 1980's. Trades were done in the morning and settlements were effected in the afternoon, with turnover regularly over $100M - physically drawing bank cheques, exchanging those cheques for the certificates for the bills and the bonds and switching securities. Austraclear changed all that overnight.
Fast forward 20 years, I would describe major banks' mortgage operations are run using Henry Fords 1910's conveyor belt assembly-line, updated with 1970's fax technology and overlayed with the latest 1980's centralised call centre. It sucks.
If the evidence already is not damning enough, I have created a Register of Complaints where you can report individual incidents on client files, estimated loss of time, cost to the firm and costs or losses to clients. Please bookmark this link to the Register of Complaints against Banks and start reporting on a regular basis. I only mentioned this to a colleague and right away she had a file where the bank on the other side had lost or misplaced the title. Lost time one hour plus. Cost to the firm $150.
Link 1 http://247legal.questionform.com/public/Report-a-Complaint-Bank-Settlements
Link 2 http://247legal.blogspot.com/2008/03/register-complaint-bank-settlements.html
Typical incidents you can report are
Plus report on estimated -
Industry reform across Australia is urgently needed.
Complaint Register. Register your complaints now or anytime and as they occur, perhaps using the time when you have been put on hold for 20 minutes or longer
Bookmark this link -
http://247legal.questionform.com/public/Report-a-Complaint-Bank-Settlements
The next step, you can help by -
Our industry should be thriving, not struggling on a daily basis.
Campaigning for reform has started. Your responses and feedback will help shape the reform.
Brett Hayton
www.247legal.com.au
03 9557 3344
Action Group for Reform of property and mortgage settlements
No prizes for guessing, its our major banks.
And the worst offender, by a long mile, is the Commonwealth Bank.
That's the treatment dished out to their customers and the customer's representatives. And this is business as usual for the majors. Seriously the banks and its executives would be aware of the problem. But what are they doing about it? Or do they just keep on getting away with it? Or are they just as frustrated as all of us.
The result of a survey and the responses from 50 conveyancers and lawyers is the banks treat their customers and mostly the customers' representatives with a universal disdain. Or my guess is the system's woes are so bad, the banks cannot recruit and retain staff with the experience and qualifications required for the job. The situation is worsening year by year, month by month as the banks' service is spiralling down. This too is having an impact on Law firms and Conveyancing companies recruiting and retaining qualified and experienced staff. It is not an industry that can readily attract or retain young individuals. Their attentions can easily be diverted to other more attractive industries. This is clearly unsustainable.
In a report that was far worse than I expected, the results of the survey make grim reading. Here's the link to the results of the survey. Thanks to those who responded to the survey. Your message is being passed along.
I cant quote everyone, so here is a response from Nick
"I am sick of wasting my time on things that should be in order, sick fixing things that the Bank clearly stuffs up. Sick of organizing and filling out bank forms (i.e. discharge authorities) which clearly is a bank document that should be completed by the Bank. Sick of answering questions for the Bank when they could pick up the phone and ask the client directly Sick of being charged reattendence settlement fees when the error is from the Bank Sick of Promises of call backs which hardly ever occur. My Time is precious and the Banks clearly waste my time for no other reason bar lack of care and incompetence."
20 plus years ago, two other markets, the share market and the money market, recognised and foresaw the problems with settlements and invoked technical solutions that reformed their industries. The solutions were all in the pre-internet days. The results transformed their industries. The solutions were put in place in recognition of what would happen if change was not instigated. It is remarkable to think the ASX introduced SEATS the day before the stock market crash in October 1987. This was followed by CHESS and what is called today T+3 (settlements within 3 days of the actual trade). Ditto Austraclear which reformed the money markets for trading bills and bonds. Austraclear is same day electronic trading and financial settlement. I recall the days very clearly as I ran the settlements side of a merchant bank in the 1980's. Trades were done in the morning and settlements were effected in the afternoon, with turnover regularly over $100M - physically drawing bank cheques, exchanging those cheques for the certificates for the bills and the bonds and switching securities. Austraclear changed all that overnight.
Fast forward 20 years, I would describe major banks' mortgage operations are run using Henry Fords 1910's conveyor belt assembly-line, updated with 1970's fax technology and overlayed with the latest 1980's centralised call centre. It sucks.
If the evidence already is not damning enough, I have created a Register of Complaints where you can report individual incidents on client files, estimated loss of time, cost to the firm and costs or losses to clients. Please bookmark this link to the Register of Complaints against Banks and start reporting on a regular basis. I only mentioned this to a colleague and right away she had a file where the bank on the other side had lost or misplaced the title. Lost time one hour plus. Cost to the firm $150.
Link 1 http://247legal.questionform.com/public/Report-a-Complaint-Bank-Settlements
Link 2 http://247legal.blogspot.com/2008/03/register-complaint-bank-settlements.html
Typical incidents you can report are
- Kept on Hold longer than 20 minutes
- Had to fax the same thing more than twice
- Mortgage / Loan Documents had to be redone
- Bank not in position to book 48 hours prior
- Title lost / misplaced
- Settlement delayed through a bank stuff up
- other:
Plus report on estimated -
- lost time,
- cost to the firm,
- loss to client for a bank stuff-up.
Industry reform across Australia is urgently needed.
Complaint Register. Register your complaints now or anytime and as they occur, perhaps using the time when you have been put on hold for 20 minutes or longer
Bookmark this link -
http://247legal.questionform.com/public/Report-a-Complaint-Bank-Settlements
The next step, you can help by -
- reporting incidents on an ongoing basis; and
- forwarding this email to colleagues and urging everyone to start reporting and registering complaints on a per file basis.
Our industry should be thriving, not struggling on a daily basis.
Campaigning for reform has started. Your responses and feedback will help shape the reform.
Brett Hayton
www.247legal.com.au
03 9557 3344
Action Group for Reform of property and mortgage settlements
Saturday, March 08, 2008
Inside a Mortgage Settlements Area
David Pogue of NYT gave a report what it is like working as a tech-support call centre. It just reminds me of what it would be like working inside a Settlements Booking area for a major bank. What he describes follows -
"I've been making fun of bad tech-support reps. Actually, not just recently—they've been one of my favorite topics for years.
Deep inside, though, I have a lot of sympathy. By definition, the tech-support job entails talking all day to angry and unhappy people, which surely can't make you feel like skipping home from work. Meanwhile, at most tech-support centers, you have to fulfill an hourly quota of calls processed—so the job is stressful, too. No wonder the burnout rate is so high (and so many of these jobs are moving overseas).
So today, equal time. It's time to place half of the tech-support blame where it belongs: at the feet of Them. The Users.
Several years ago, I had the chance to visit a tech-support call center for one of the big computer companies. The technician gave me a second pair of headphones so I could listen in on his conversations with the hapless users.
I learned so much that day. I learned that all computer companies outsource tech support to dedicated call-center companies. I learned that the Users can be outrageously rude to these hapless tech-support reps, taking out their built-up frustration on somebody who had nothing to do with causing the problem.
And I learned that when they say, "Your call may be recorded for quality assurance purposes," that's only partly true. They also record your calls so they can pass around recordings of the funniest ones."
One the other hand, conveyancing staff working for lawyers and conveyancing companies, they are frustrated by the banks putting them on hold for 20 minutes and just generally having to deal with inexperienced bank staff, little wonder people are rude, They are sick of it,
"I've been making fun of bad tech-support reps. Actually, not just recently—they've been one of my favorite topics for years.
Deep inside, though, I have a lot of sympathy. By definition, the tech-support job entails talking all day to angry and unhappy people, which surely can't make you feel like skipping home from work. Meanwhile, at most tech-support centers, you have to fulfill an hourly quota of calls processed—so the job is stressful, too. No wonder the burnout rate is so high (and so many of these jobs are moving overseas).
So today, equal time. It's time to place half of the tech-support blame where it belongs: at the feet of Them. The Users.
Several years ago, I had the chance to visit a tech-support call center for one of the big computer companies. The technician gave me a second pair of headphones so I could listen in on his conversations with the hapless users.
I learned so much that day. I learned that all computer companies outsource tech support to dedicated call-center companies. I learned that the Users can be outrageously rude to these hapless tech-support reps, taking out their built-up frustration on somebody who had nothing to do with causing the problem.
And I learned that when they say, "Your call may be recorded for quality assurance purposes," that's only partly true. They also record your calls so they can pass around recordings of the funniest ones."
One the other hand, conveyancing staff working for lawyers and conveyancing companies, they are frustrated by the banks putting them on hold for 20 minutes and just generally having to deal with inexperienced bank staff, little wonder people are rude, They are sick of it,
Wanted: A More Digital Congress
When it comes to taking advantage of all the Internet has to offer, some media gurus say Congress is a little behind the curve.
Danny Glover, a tech expert at the Media Research Center put it this way: Most of the world is adapting to the so-called “Web 2.0″ phase of interactive, open source Internet programming. Congress is “maybe in a Web 0.5 phase.”
The consensus among most panelists as the Politics Online Conference in Washington seemed to be that Congress and the White House aren’t doing all they can — and should — be doing to incorporate average Americans into government.
Even in 2008, legislators still seem to be in the “early adopter phase” of developing their personal Web sites, said Mr. Glover, who added that the few congressmen who keep blogs only do it to seem “cool.” (Panelist Johanna Shelton of Google, however, gave props to Ben Nelson, senator of Nebraska, for keeping an online diary of his recent trip to Iraq.)
Some of the ideas tossed out during the break-out sessions were making congressional proceedings available on Web sites other than C-Span and making more government documents accessible to search engines. That’s doable with “a couple hours of coding,” Ms. Shelton said.
Another way to share content online with voters, said Sascha Meinrath of the New American Foundation, is including access to a program like Google Documents, which allows multiple users to edit the same document. The idea is that if congressmen put a preliminary draft of a bill in an open source program on their sites, then specialists out in their home districts could amend the language or add information that hadn’t been addressed for the legislator to consider.
“We should be tapping into that expertise,” Mr. Meinrath said. “Peer production is a massive untapped resource.”
Mr. Glover added: “We’re trying to make it easier to be involved and get more people involved.”
Both of those gentlemen acknowledged that politicians face a kind of Catch-22 when it comes to making their work more transparent. Statements and videos they post online can be taken out of context or re-edited.
One of the most successful examples of a government-run Web site is WhiteHouse.gov, said David Almacy, a former Internet director for George W. Bush’s White House. The site gets about 3 to 7 million page views per week, and provides policy information — and the popular Barney Cam holiday videos — to Internet surfers.
(To see how far the president’s official Web page has come, Mr. Almacy suggested looking at the original White House site under Bill Clinton, which can be accessed through the National Archives in all its cutting-edge-at-the-time glory.)
The most technologically advanced move made by the White House came this year, when the White House submitted its 2008 budget electronically for the first time, complete with President Bush’s e-signature.
But the president’s page is far from open-source. An “Ask the White House” feature has been running since 2005, but Mr. Almaty said “this president will never blog.”
And Ellen Miller of the Sunlight Foundation, which pushes for more government transparency, said the White House site is mostly full of P.R.-friendly statements.
As with any revolution, Mr. Meinrath said, some uncertainty lies in whether Congress will ever make use of all the Internet tools available to it. “That’s an open question,” he said.
Mr. Glover had a, well, slightly morbid outlook: Congress might not become more technology-forward “until older people are voted out of office or die.”
NYT | Ariel Alexovich | March 5, 08
Danny Glover, a tech expert at the Media Research Center put it this way: Most of the world is adapting to the so-called “Web 2.0″ phase of interactive, open source Internet programming. Congress is “maybe in a Web 0.5 phase.”
The consensus among most panelists as the Politics Online Conference in Washington seemed to be that Congress and the White House aren’t doing all they can — and should — be doing to incorporate average Americans into government.
Even in 2008, legislators still seem to be in the “early adopter phase” of developing their personal Web sites, said Mr. Glover, who added that the few congressmen who keep blogs only do it to seem “cool.” (Panelist Johanna Shelton of Google, however, gave props to Ben Nelson, senator of Nebraska, for keeping an online diary of his recent trip to Iraq.)
Some of the ideas tossed out during the break-out sessions were making congressional proceedings available on Web sites other than C-Span and making more government documents accessible to search engines. That’s doable with “a couple hours of coding,” Ms. Shelton said.
Another way to share content online with voters, said Sascha Meinrath of the New American Foundation, is including access to a program like Google Documents, which allows multiple users to edit the same document. The idea is that if congressmen put a preliminary draft of a bill in an open source program on their sites, then specialists out in their home districts could amend the language or add information that hadn’t been addressed for the legislator to consider.
“We should be tapping into that expertise,” Mr. Meinrath said. “Peer production is a massive untapped resource.”
Mr. Glover added: “We’re trying to make it easier to be involved and get more people involved.”
Both of those gentlemen acknowledged that politicians face a kind of Catch-22 when it comes to making their work more transparent. Statements and videos they post online can be taken out of context or re-edited.
One of the most successful examples of a government-run Web site is WhiteHouse.gov, said David Almacy, a former Internet director for George W. Bush’s White House. The site gets about 3 to 7 million page views per week, and provides policy information — and the popular Barney Cam holiday videos — to Internet surfers.
(To see how far the president’s official Web page has come, Mr. Almacy suggested looking at the original White House site under Bill Clinton, which can be accessed through the National Archives in all its cutting-edge-at-the-time glory.)
The most technologically advanced move made by the White House came this year, when the White House submitted its 2008 budget electronically for the first time, complete with President Bush’s e-signature.
But the president’s page is far from open-source. An “Ask the White House” feature has been running since 2005, but Mr. Almaty said “this president will never blog.”
And Ellen Miller of the Sunlight Foundation, which pushes for more government transparency, said the White House site is mostly full of P.R.-friendly statements.
As with any revolution, Mr. Meinrath said, some uncertainty lies in whether Congress will ever make use of all the Internet tools available to it. “That’s an open question,” he said.
Mr. Glover had a, well, slightly morbid outlook: Congress might not become more technology-forward “until older people are voted out of office or die.”
NYT | Ariel Alexovich | March 5, 08
Friday, March 07, 2008
Creating an effective national system is Rudd's challenge
Chris Merritt | The Australian | 7 March 2008
The state governments have given Kevin Rudd a stark choice.
The PM now has little choice but to shunt them aside and take the leading role in the push to establish a national system of electronic conveyancing.
The parochial states have shown themselves incapable of committing themselves to an e-conveyancing system that is truly national.
They have ignored key players in conveyancing - banks and solicitors - and designed their own framework as if the interests of bureaucrats were paramount.
If Rudd does nothing, the state governments look set to kill the only chance this country will have of making big savings in the cost of property transactions.
An opportunity to cut the cost of buying a home is on the line. Rudd offered new leadership. Now is his chance.
After being duchessed in secret by the Victorian Government for three days, representatives of every state agreed this week to embark on a course of action that is likely to increase the cost of conveyancing, not reduce it.
They agreed to establish a network of state-based electronic conveyancing systems modelled on the system being boycotted by banks and solicitors in Victoria.
The banks want a single national system so they can avoid the cost of dealing with separate state systems. They have been crystal clear about that: they want nothing to do with a federation of state systems.
To proceed down that track is akin to repeating the conflicting rail gauges that were a legacy of small thinking in colonial times.
The only winner from this development might be the Government of Victoria - which hosted this week's meeting. It has spent $40 million building an e-conveyancing system few people use.
But if every other state adopts the same state-based system, Victoria's problem suddenly becomes a problem shared by every other state.
The problems in Victoria are substantial. Conveyancing costs have risen and there is no sign of solicitors and banks ending their boycott. And that is the system that will now spread like measles around the nation.
< /end article >
To quote Shakespeare
Lear:
No, I will weep no more. In such a night
To shut me out? Pour on; I will endure.
In such a night as this? O Regan, Goneril!
Your old kind father, whose frank heart gave all—
O, that way madness lies; let me shun that;
No more of that.
King Lear Act 3, scene 4, 17–22
The state governments have given Kevin Rudd a stark choice.
The PM now has little choice but to shunt them aside and take the leading role in the push to establish a national system of electronic conveyancing.
The parochial states have shown themselves incapable of committing themselves to an e-conveyancing system that is truly national.
They have ignored key players in conveyancing - banks and solicitors - and designed their own framework as if the interests of bureaucrats were paramount.
If Rudd does nothing, the state governments look set to kill the only chance this country will have of making big savings in the cost of property transactions.
An opportunity to cut the cost of buying a home is on the line. Rudd offered new leadership. Now is his chance.
After being duchessed in secret by the Victorian Government for three days, representatives of every state agreed this week to embark on a course of action that is likely to increase the cost of conveyancing, not reduce it.
They agreed to establish a network of state-based electronic conveyancing systems modelled on the system being boycotted by banks and solicitors in Victoria.
The banks want a single national system so they can avoid the cost of dealing with separate state systems. They have been crystal clear about that: they want nothing to do with a federation of state systems.
To proceed down that track is akin to repeating the conflicting rail gauges that were a legacy of small thinking in colonial times.
The only winner from this development might be the Government of Victoria - which hosted this week's meeting. It has spent $40 million building an e-conveyancing system few people use.
But if every other state adopts the same state-based system, Victoria's problem suddenly becomes a problem shared by every other state.
The problems in Victoria are substantial. Conveyancing costs have risen and there is no sign of solicitors and banks ending their boycott. And that is the system that will now spread like measles around the nation.
< /end article >
To quote Shakespeare
Lear:
No, I will weep no more. In such a night
To shut me out? Pour on; I will endure.
In such a night as this? O Regan, Goneril!
Your old kind father, whose frank heart gave all—
O, that way madness lies; let me shun that;
No more of that.
King Lear Act 3, scene 4, 17–22
Vital parties denied e-conveyance input
THE push for a national electronic conveyancing system has been thrown into turmoil after state governments held a secret meeting aimed at sidelining lawyers, banks and conveyancers.
The meeting endorsed a plan for the states to adopt versions of Victoria's state-based electronic conveyancing system that would be customised to include differences between the states.
They also established a new "national entity" to determine how electronic conveyancing is to be implemented.
These decisions appear at odds with decisions that have already been taken by a joint government and business group that is responsible for building a national e-conveyancing system.
The move by the states prompted warnings from the Law Council of Australia and Australian Bankers Association, which have long demanded a single national system to eliminate the cost of dealing with separate state systems.
ABA director Ian Gilbert said unless the states took account of the needs of lawyers and others in the private sector, there could be a very small take-up rate for any system they developed.
"The systems have got to work for the people who will be getting the money to pay the jurisdictions for operating the system," Mr Gilbert said.
"I would have thought that was a pretty simple economic fact.
"If it does not meet private sector requirements, you may end up with a white elephant."
Mr Gilbert's warning reflects the the view of John Corcoran of the Law Council, which has also been demanding a national system. They both said they were not told of the meeting and learned of its outcome via a press release by the Victorian Government.
Mr Gilbert said the positive aspect of the Melbourne meeting was that Victoria appeared to have reached agreement on a process leading to the other states gaining access to the intellectual property underpinning Victoria's state-based e-conveyancing system.
"We have been asking for that for a long time," he said.
"But the concern is that this meeting went on to devise a governance model for the national electronic conveyancing system."
The structure outlined by the states would be dominated by state officials, which is at odds with a structure developed by a rival organisation that includes private sector representatives.
Mr Corcoran said the essential requirement for any e-conveyancing system was that it must be acceptable to key stakeholders.
He said the Victorian state-based system was not being used because of concerns by lawyers and bankers and it was "absolutely critical" other state governments took account of their views.
"We want a system that can be used by any lawyer in Australia dealing with any property in Australia," Mr Corcoran said.
The meeting between the states took place in the Melbourne offices of Mallesons Stephen Jaques and was chaired by former NSW premier Bob Carr, who attended the meeting at the invitation of the Victorian Government.
After the meeting, the Victorian Government announced an agreement had been reached on "a framework and structure by which Victoria could transfer the intellectual property" in its state-based e-conveyancing system to a new "national entity".
This entity would be owned by the state governments and a board of government officials would determine the strategy for implementing the new system. It would also determine "operational considerations".
While the statement issued after the meeting did not refer to private-sector users of e-conveyancing, it said "special interest committees" would be established and these would report to the board.
The new structure is at odds with a decision backed by private sector bodies and all state governments except Queensland at a meeting in Canberra last month.
That meeting was called by the steering committee of an organisation known as the National Electronic Conveyancing System. It agreed to give private sector representatives key roles in a project tream charged with building a national e-conveyancing system.
Despite the apparent clash between the organisations, the Victorian Government last night said that nothing agreed upon in Melbourne replaced existing agreements. That statement was from a spokesman for Environment Minister Gavin Jennings, who is responsible for Victoria's electronic conveyancing system, which is known as ECV.
"The meetings held over two days this week in Melbourne have been at officer level from all the jurisdictions, with the aim of establishing the basis of an agreement for all states and territories to have access to the ECV intellectual property," it said.
"The minister is pleased that agreement at this level has been reached. The detail of this agreement reached at officer level will now be considered at a higher level in all jurisdictions, before being taken forward.
"Nothing in the agreement reached this week supersedes or replaces existing agreements, as all jurisdictions remain committed to the establishment of a national EC system."
Chris Merritt, Legal affairs editor | March 07, 2008 | The Australian
The meeting endorsed a plan for the states to adopt versions of Victoria's state-based electronic conveyancing system that would be customised to include differences between the states.
They also established a new "national entity" to determine how electronic conveyancing is to be implemented.
These decisions appear at odds with decisions that have already been taken by a joint government and business group that is responsible for building a national e-conveyancing system.
The move by the states prompted warnings from the Law Council of Australia and Australian Bankers Association, which have long demanded a single national system to eliminate the cost of dealing with separate state systems.
ABA director Ian Gilbert said unless the states took account of the needs of lawyers and others in the private sector, there could be a very small take-up rate for any system they developed.
"The systems have got to work for the people who will be getting the money to pay the jurisdictions for operating the system," Mr Gilbert said.
"I would have thought that was a pretty simple economic fact.
"If it does not meet private sector requirements, you may end up with a white elephant."
Mr Gilbert's warning reflects the the view of John Corcoran of the Law Council, which has also been demanding a national system. They both said they were not told of the meeting and learned of its outcome via a press release by the Victorian Government.
Mr Gilbert said the positive aspect of the Melbourne meeting was that Victoria appeared to have reached agreement on a process leading to the other states gaining access to the intellectual property underpinning Victoria's state-based e-conveyancing system.
"We have been asking for that for a long time," he said.
"But the concern is that this meeting went on to devise a governance model for the national electronic conveyancing system."
The structure outlined by the states would be dominated by state officials, which is at odds with a structure developed by a rival organisation that includes private sector representatives.
Mr Corcoran said the essential requirement for any e-conveyancing system was that it must be acceptable to key stakeholders.
He said the Victorian state-based system was not being used because of concerns by lawyers and bankers and it was "absolutely critical" other state governments took account of their views.
"We want a system that can be used by any lawyer in Australia dealing with any property in Australia," Mr Corcoran said.
The meeting between the states took place in the Melbourne offices of Mallesons Stephen Jaques and was chaired by former NSW premier Bob Carr, who attended the meeting at the invitation of the Victorian Government.
After the meeting, the Victorian Government announced an agreement had been reached on "a framework and structure by which Victoria could transfer the intellectual property" in its state-based e-conveyancing system to a new "national entity".
This entity would be owned by the state governments and a board of government officials would determine the strategy for implementing the new system. It would also determine "operational considerations".
While the statement issued after the meeting did not refer to private-sector users of e-conveyancing, it said "special interest committees" would be established and these would report to the board.
The new structure is at odds with a decision backed by private sector bodies and all state governments except Queensland at a meeting in Canberra last month.
That meeting was called by the steering committee of an organisation known as the National Electronic Conveyancing System. It agreed to give private sector representatives key roles in a project tream charged with building a national e-conveyancing system.
Despite the apparent clash between the organisations, the Victorian Government last night said that nothing agreed upon in Melbourne replaced existing agreements. That statement was from a spokesman for Environment Minister Gavin Jennings, who is responsible for Victoria's electronic conveyancing system, which is known as ECV.
"The meetings held over two days this week in Melbourne have been at officer level from all the jurisdictions, with the aim of establishing the basis of an agreement for all states and territories to have access to the ECV intellectual property," it said.
"The minister is pleased that agreement at this level has been reached. The detail of this agreement reached at officer level will now be considered at a higher level in all jurisdictions, before being taken forward.
"Nothing in the agreement reached this week supersedes or replaces existing agreements, as all jurisdictions remain committed to the establishment of a national EC system."
Chris Merritt, Legal affairs editor | March 07, 2008 | The Australian
Thursday, March 06, 2008
Tuesday, March 04, 2008
UK - Mortgage Processor cuts jobs
Alliance & Leicester is axing 300 jobs following fall-out from the worldwide credit crunch.
Staff at its Wigan and Leicester mortgage processing departments and its Bootle back-office have been offered voluntary redundancy.
The bank - which employs 8,000 - said staff will have until the end of March to apply, with the jobs being cut from May.
A&L blamed the reduction in loans it expects in 2008.
Last week, the bank revealed a 30 per cent fall in profits and said it will be retreating from the mortgage market and focusing on savings and its growing current account business.
mirror.co.uk
Staff at its Wigan and Leicester mortgage processing departments and its Bootle back-office have been offered voluntary redundancy.
The bank - which employs 8,000 - said staff will have until the end of March to apply, with the jobs being cut from May.
A&L blamed the reduction in loans it expects in 2008.
Last week, the bank revealed a 30 per cent fall in profits and said it will be retreating from the mortgage market and focusing on savings and its growing current account business.
mirror.co.uk
Monday, March 03, 2008
Action Group - solving the crisis of settlements & banks
Australia's own mortgage crisis
Its official - Major Banks Suck
Its official - the Settlements Operations of the major banks suck. Big time. We all knew that anyway.
Hey, it felt good to me that you shared the indignity of being put on hold for 20 minutes. The utter senselessness of sending a fax for it to disappear into the ether. We share the pain with you.
Here's the link to read the results of the survey, thus far. Results of the Survey and Responses
Some of the responses make you laugh and cry at the same time.
The survey is ongoing and the results are cumulative and tallied automatically Survey: Does dealing with the major banks suck?
Our representative bodies are aware of the issue. The LIV and the AIC. Pauline Barrow has being pushing the issue for the last 4 years. I have asked for a response from the LIV.
Myself, I am in favour of an independent action group to singularly push the issue and reform, which I am happy to spearhead with your support.
Action Group - suggestions for names
First, any suggestions what to call the Action Group?
I will circulate your suggestions and then we can vote on the name
The Survey - why the major banks suck
Second, spread the survey to your colleagues and encourage them to complete the survey.
The more names and the more responses the better - the number of responses so far is mid 30s. Lets see if we can score more than 100 - 1000!. We can even start to spread the campaign interstate, make it Australia wide.
When I get a response, I can add their name to the Action Group etc.
Or alternatively, email me with any names & email of persons that wish to be added to the mailing list
Here are the links you need to copy and paste into your emails
Results of the Survey and General Responses
Survey: Does dealing with the major banks suck?
The Industry - their response
I circulated an email to several industry representatives to ask their response to the Survey and the results thus far. I am not holding my breath on the banks giving any meaningful response, but lets see. This campaign is only just beginning. We will stand united.
Perhaps we will need to engage counsel to advise on a class action. I feel the banks owe each and everyone of us compensation. Goddam it, half of us are lawyers, its our day job suing capricious injudicious unconsidered defendants. Make them pay. Make the executives of the banks co-defendants!
The Media
I will be issuing a Media Release to The Australian, The Age and The Fin Review.
A good starting pointing is the media to bring attention to the problem that we all know is spiralling ever downward.
Copy of the Media Release to follow.
Survey Results - thus far
The results of a Survey of Lawyers and Conveyancing are damning
What the highlight of the survey was not the results, they were not unexpected, it was the opportunity for lawyers and conveyancers to vent their frustrations in carrying out their daily tasks of dealing with the banks, day in day out. Here's a few examples.
Soozi
the bank's don't CARE.
they do not have to speak to the clients or be responsible for the delays in settlement, often caused by the bank. they are just names to the banks. to us, they are clients who we speak with, who are a family with young children, elderly couples, people who need assistance. Care Factor Zero by the banks. So Frustrating. Put on more staff, more telephone assistance, and people who KNOW what they are doing !
Nick
They're all the same.The bottom line is that Banks are reactive not proactive, and control the lending/settlements area like an indian call centre where, if a box is not ticked in sequential mode, it goes in the too hard basket of some uneducated pimply school leaver who has had no training. Do they get their staff from the CES because they are subsidised by the Government? Why do they always work to the lowest common denominator? Money! Service......none. Customers are numbers like prisoners in a nazi concentration camp.
Jo
Frustration with all banks but particularly CBA and ANZ. CBA has got progressively worse with waiting times of up to an hour, inability to book settlements sometimes until the day of settlement with no one willing to take responsibility and no one able to tell why such a delay. ANZ Discharges is a total disgrace with rude staff who do not know what they are doing and continually tell you things that never eventuate. They will only settle with their original Discharge Authority signed by the vendor but will not provide you with the Authority until a couple of days before settlement even though they've had the request for anywhere up to three months and despite continual faxes and phone calls and agreement that the service is disgraceful with no action taken until they can be bothered. AND don't get me started on Section 27 requests. This seems to be right across the board with all banks, even though you may have given them months notice, they do not start working on files until a couple of days prior to settlement causing us all sorts of problems with organising settlements and getting details. It seems to be that all banks have cut their staff so much that they give no service then panic, rehire and have to retrain staff only to cut the staff again and so the cycle goes. I really don't give a stuff if they're short staffed and under-trained. This is no excuse, they need to do something about it - imagine if we treated our clients this way - WE'D BE OUT OF BUSINESS. In my many years of doing conveyancing I have never experienced such incompetence, lack of accountability and poor service - they've taken it to a new level!!
Graeme
Sick of banks (that just says it all)
The responses are just a sample. Click here for more responses
The disgust for the situation is universal.
How do Settlements Operations work?
In summary the major banks' mortgage operations are run using Henry Fords 1910's conveyor belt assembly-line, updated with 1970's fax technology and overlayed with the latest 1980's centralised call centre.
No single bank employee has responsibility for a client file, it is a collective responsibility, meaning no responsibility. Emailing is not an option. Direct dialling - what's that? Book online - well that's a new thought - why didn't we think of that? You just cant do it. Again, its not an option.
source - wikipedia
Lawyers and conveyancers are all professionals and deserve an equal amount of respect. The executives of the banks have a lot to answer for decline in service levels that has brought the industry to its knees. The banks' attitude is totally cost driven. I would not be surprised if their next step is to outsource the lot to India, such is their we don't care attitude
Problems demand Answers and Solutions
There is no doubt the major banks have created the problem in the pursuit of short term efficiencies and cost savings. Having created the problem, the problem is now out of control. As much as the short term answer is more staff, the banks have the greater issue of staff retention. Recruiting, training and retaining experienced settlement staff is now an industry wide worry. Only 2 months ago, the Commonwealth Bank (Melbourne office) had to literally second and conscript staff to work in the settlements area. Not since the Vietnam War have we seen conscription. Increased staffing levels is just a short term panacea. But it appears no-one wants a career working under such demoralising conditions.
Reform is demanded.
The solution. It has to be industry wide, it has to be national and it has to be a technical solution. The securities industry and the money markets recognised this problem over 20 years ago and collectively enacted just that - the results were SEATS, CHESS & Austraclear, all world class solutions.
Links
Results of the Survey and General Responses
Survey: Does dealing with the major banks suck?
247legal Blog - issues covering conveyancing
For further information
Brett Hayton
Property & Conveyancing Lawyer
Hayton Kosky Lawyers
03 9557 3344
bretthayton at gmail.com
247legal.com.au #1 for digital conveyancing
on behalf of all disgruntled lawyers and conveyancers that are fed up with the banks
We demand national action and national solutions
Its official - Major Banks Suck
Its official - the Settlements Operations of the major banks suck. Big time. We all knew that anyway.
Hey, it felt good to me that you shared the indignity of being put on hold for 20 minutes. The utter senselessness of sending a fax for it to disappear into the ether. We share the pain with you.
Here's the link to read the results of the survey, thus far. Results of the Survey and Responses
Some of the responses make you laugh and cry at the same time.
The survey is ongoing and the results are cumulative and tallied automatically Survey: Does dealing with the major banks suck?
Our representative bodies are aware of the issue. The LIV and the AIC. Pauline Barrow has being pushing the issue for the last 4 years. I have asked for a response from the LIV.
Myself, I am in favour of an independent action group to singularly push the issue and reform, which I am happy to spearhead with your support.
Action Group - suggestions for names
First, any suggestions what to call the Action Group?
I will circulate your suggestions and then we can vote on the name
The Survey - why the major banks suck
Second, spread the survey to your colleagues and encourage them to complete the survey.
- Send it to all your colleagues
- Send it to the practitioner on the other side of any current matter
The more names and the more responses the better - the number of responses so far is mid 30s. Lets see if we can score more than 100 - 1000!. We can even start to spread the campaign interstate, make it Australia wide.
When I get a response, I can add their name to the Action Group etc.
Or alternatively, email me with any names & email of persons that wish to be added to the mailing list
Here are the links you need to copy and paste into your emails
Results of the Survey and General Responses
Survey: Does dealing with the major banks suck?
The Industry - their response
I circulated an email to several industry representatives to ask their response to the Survey and the results thus far. I am not holding my breath on the banks giving any meaningful response, but lets see. This campaign is only just beginning. We will stand united.
Perhaps we will need to engage counsel to advise on a class action. I feel the banks owe each and everyone of us compensation. Goddam it, half of us are lawyers, its our day job suing capricious injudicious unconsidered defendants. Make them pay. Make the executives of the banks co-defendants!
The Media
I will be issuing a Media Release to The Australian, The Age and The Fin Review.
A good starting pointing is the media to bring attention to the problem that we all know is spiralling ever downward.
Copy of the Media Release to follow.
Survey Results - thus far
The results of a Survey of Lawyers and Conveyancing are damning
- Commonwealth Bank Settlements Department is voted #1 biggest loser
- The average time on hold is 20 minutes
- Faxes routinely get lost and have to be faxed more than twice (fax heaven or to insiders the blob)
- Clients miss settlements through bank stuff-ups
- The service of banks settlements is worsening by a large margin
What the highlight of the survey was not the results, they were not unexpected, it was the opportunity for lawyers and conveyancers to vent their frustrations in carrying out their daily tasks of dealing with the banks, day in day out. Here's a few examples.
Soozi
the bank's don't CARE.
they do not have to speak to the clients or be responsible for the delays in settlement, often caused by the bank. they are just names to the banks. to us, they are clients who we speak with, who are a family with young children, elderly couples, people who need assistance. Care Factor Zero by the banks. So Frustrating. Put on more staff, more telephone assistance, and people who KNOW what they are doing !
Nick
They're all the same.The bottom line is that Banks are reactive not proactive, and control the lending/settlements area like an indian call centre where, if a box is not ticked in sequential mode, it goes in the too hard basket of some uneducated pimply school leaver who has had no training. Do they get their staff from the CES because they are subsidised by the Government? Why do they always work to the lowest common denominator? Money! Service......none. Customers are numbers like prisoners in a nazi concentration camp.
Jo
Frustration with all banks but particularly CBA and ANZ. CBA has got progressively worse with waiting times of up to an hour, inability to book settlements sometimes until the day of settlement with no one willing to take responsibility and no one able to tell why such a delay. ANZ Discharges is a total disgrace with rude staff who do not know what they are doing and continually tell you things that never eventuate. They will only settle with their original Discharge Authority signed by the vendor but will not provide you with the Authority until a couple of days before settlement even though they've had the request for anywhere up to three months and despite continual faxes and phone calls and agreement that the service is disgraceful with no action taken until they can be bothered. AND don't get me started on Section 27 requests. This seems to be right across the board with all banks, even though you may have given them months notice, they do not start working on files until a couple of days prior to settlement causing us all sorts of problems with organising settlements and getting details. It seems to be that all banks have cut their staff so much that they give no service then panic, rehire and have to retrain staff only to cut the staff again and so the cycle goes. I really don't give a stuff if they're short staffed and under-trained. This is no excuse, they need to do something about it - imagine if we treated our clients this way - WE'D BE OUT OF BUSINESS. In my many years of doing conveyancing I have never experienced such incompetence, lack of accountability and poor service - they've taken it to a new level!!
Graeme
Sick of banks (that just says it all)
The responses are just a sample. Click here for more responses
The disgust for the situation is universal.
How do Settlements Operations work?
In summary the major banks' mortgage operations are run using Henry Fords 1910's conveyor belt assembly-line, updated with 1970's fax technology and overlayed with the latest 1980's centralised call centre.
No single bank employee has responsibility for a client file, it is a collective responsibility, meaning no responsibility. Emailing is not an option. Direct dialling - what's that? Book online - well that's a new thought - why didn't we think of that? You just cant do it. Again, its not an option.
Lawyers and conveyancers are all professionals and deserve an equal amount of respect. The executives of the banks have a lot to answer for decline in service levels that has brought the industry to its knees. The banks' attitude is totally cost driven. I would not be surprised if their next step is to outsource the lot to India, such is their we don't care attitude
Problems demand Answers and Solutions
There is no doubt the major banks have created the problem in the pursuit of short term efficiencies and cost savings. Having created the problem, the problem is now out of control. As much as the short term answer is more staff, the banks have the greater issue of staff retention. Recruiting, training and retaining experienced settlement staff is now an industry wide worry. Only 2 months ago, the Commonwealth Bank (Melbourne office) had to literally second and conscript staff to work in the settlements area. Not since the Vietnam War have we seen conscription. Increased staffing levels is just a short term panacea. But it appears no-one wants a career working under such demoralising conditions.
Reform is demanded.
The solution. It has to be industry wide, it has to be national and it has to be a technical solution. The securities industry and the money markets recognised this problem over 20 years ago and collectively enacted just that - the results were SEATS, CHESS & Austraclear, all world class solutions.
Links
Results of the Survey and General Responses
Survey: Does dealing with the major banks suck?
247legal Blog - issues covering conveyancing
For further information
Brett Hayton
Property & Conveyancing Lawyer
Hayton Kosky Lawyers
03 9557 3344
bretthayton at gmail.com
247legal.com.au #1 for digital conveyancing
on behalf of all disgruntled lawyers and conveyancers that are fed up with the banks
We demand national action and national solutions
Saturday, March 01, 2008
Land Title Certificates abolished in UK
Continuing the series in which our Clinic experts provide a guide to those thorny issues that can trip up the unwary. This week, David Fleming on why we no longer need title deeds
What are title deeds?
Historically, title deeds were the pieces of paper that showed who owned a property. In the case of unregistered land, they have always consisted of conveyances and other documents showing the transfer of the property from one owner to another. Most land is registered now and the deeds used to be either a land certificate or, in the case of property with a mortgage, a charge certificate with the mortgage deed bound into it. Both contained a copy of the entries at the Land Registry showing the property (together with a plan), the name of the owner and details of mortgages and other charges. That was until October 2003, when everything changed.
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What happened then?
The Land Registration Act 2002 came into force and abolished land and charge certificates. Now all the owner receives when a property changes hands or is mortgaged is a copy of the entries held at the Land Registry. And often the only document handed over at the completion of a sale is a form of transfer signed and witnessed by the seller in favour of the buyer.
Why all these changes?
It is the first step in a grand scheme for electronic conveyancing, which will eventually mean no more paper transfers, mortgages and so on. It is unclear exactly how this will work in practice, but clearly there will have to be some form of "electronic signature" whereby the seller's solicitor confirms that the property has been transferred to the buyer. One major advantage to the new system will be a facility for all the parties in a chain of transactions to see the progress of the chain online rather than wait for their solicitors to get in touch.
So does it matter if my lawyer has lost my deeds?
No. But if you want something for your files, you can obtain a copy of the title register and title plan for £3 each (www.landregisteronline.gov.uk). And, when you buy a house, keep the copy of the register entries, which your solicitor should send you on completion, just in case disaster strikes and the Land Registry's electronic records become corrupted (I would stress that this has never yet happened to my knowledge, and I am sure the Land Registry has all the necessary back-up systems).
# David Fleming is head of property litigation at William Heath & Co
The Telegraph.co.uk
What are title deeds?
Historically, title deeds were the pieces of paper that showed who owned a property. In the case of unregistered land, they have always consisted of conveyances and other documents showing the transfer of the property from one owner to another. Most land is registered now and the deeds used to be either a land certificate or, in the case of property with a mortgage, a charge certificate with the mortgage deed bound into it. Both contained a copy of the entries at the Land Registry showing the property (together with a plan), the name of the owner and details of mortgages and other charges. That was until October 2003, when everything changed.
advertisement
What happened then?
The Land Registration Act 2002 came into force and abolished land and charge certificates. Now all the owner receives when a property changes hands or is mortgaged is a copy of the entries held at the Land Registry. And often the only document handed over at the completion of a sale is a form of transfer signed and witnessed by the seller in favour of the buyer.
Why all these changes?
It is the first step in a grand scheme for electronic conveyancing, which will eventually mean no more paper transfers, mortgages and so on. It is unclear exactly how this will work in practice, but clearly there will have to be some form of "electronic signature" whereby the seller's solicitor confirms that the property has been transferred to the buyer. One major advantage to the new system will be a facility for all the parties in a chain of transactions to see the progress of the chain online rather than wait for their solicitors to get in touch.
So does it matter if my lawyer has lost my deeds?
No. But if you want something for your files, you can obtain a copy of the title register and title plan for £3 each (www.landregisteronline.gov.uk). And, when you buy a house, keep the copy of the register entries, which your solicitor should send you on completion, just in case disaster strikes and the Land Registry's electronic records become corrupted (I would stress that this has never yet happened to my knowledge, and I am sure the Land Registry has all the necessary back-up systems).
# David Fleming is head of property litigation at William Heath & Co
The Telegraph.co.uk
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