Out of curiosity will the changes to electronic convenyancing mean less conveyancers are needed? Just worried it might not be the right time to get into this industry.
In terms of names, pick something easy to spell and easy to google
If you were to google 'melbourne conveyancer' you might as well put that in your name so you get a hit
First Melbourne Settlements
First Melbourne Conveyancing
Correct, less conveyancers needed.
A lot of my conveyancing solicitors time is taken up on the phone to banks trying to book settlements or on the phone to the other side chasing cheque directions or on the phone chasing payout figures or on the phone chasing up available funds.
But the big job cuts are going to be in settlement clerks/ agents.
At a typical settlement you have:
Buyer's solicitor's clerk
Seller's solicitor's clerk
Buyer's bank's agent
Seller's bank's agent
After settlement:
Buyer's solicitor's clerk takes cheque for fees to bank, Buyer's solicitor sends transfer duty cheque to OSR
Seller's solicitor's clerk takes cheque for fees and surplus funds to bank (2 banks if Seller bank is different to solicitor bank)
Buyer's bank's agent takes release of mortgage, transfers & new mortgage to titles office.
Seller's bank's agent takes cheque back to bank
Electronic settlement:
No one attends anywhere
Pexa sucks money out of bank or buyer's solicitors trust account
Pexa pays money to seller's bank, seller (or their solicitor's trust account), OSR, Solicitor's bank accounts for fees.
Pexa registers release of mortgage, transfer, new mortgage electronically.
There will still be matters that don't settle electronically.
I use my own inhouse settlement clerks to go out to settlements, post electronic settlement I believe that will change to clerk and even then it will be a minor part of one person's role
Also am estimating that each conveyancing solicitor will be able to increase their file load by around 25%, but that will remain to be seen.
Am waiting to see what the PEXA settlement fee will be, am guessing it will not be enough for us to drop our prices, though we will if it is. They are currently charging $25 to lodge a mortgage so imagine our fee will be much higher.
