AFTER breaking open the conveyancing market in Victoria, the nation's non-lawyer conveyancers are turning their sights on Queensland - the last state in which solicitors enjoy a statutory monopoly on property transfers. After Victoria's decision last week to open the conveyancing market to full competition, Australian Institute of Conveyancers national president Terry Allen called on the Queensland Government to fall into line with the rest of the nation. He said conveyancers from around the nation had been planning to meet in Melbourne on February 18, but after the Victorian breakthrough, Queensland would be high on the agenda.
"After that meeting I want to arrange meetings with the Queensland Attorney-General and Minister for Consumer Affairs," Mr Allen said.
The focus on Queensland comes after last week's decision by Victorian Consumer Affairs Minister Marsha Thomson to license and regulate non-lawyer conveyancers.
The Government has also decided to abolish the distinction between legal work and non-legal work in conveyancing transactions.
This will have the effect of removing the residual monopoly solicitors enjoy over parts of conveyancing work. It will also bring Victoria into line with regulatory arrangements in all states except Queensland.
Before last week's change, Victoria allowed anyone to call themselves a conveyancer and offer non-legal conveyancing services to the public. In Queensland, non-lawyer conveyancers are subject to a complete ban.
While Victorian conveyancers will soon be able to compete on an even footing with solicitors, the Law Institute of Victoria and the Australian Institute of Conveyancers are both predicting that some conveyancers will leave the industry.
While some "grandfathering" arrangements are expected to cover existing conveyancers, Law Institute chief executive John Cain and AIC Victorian chief executive Jill Ludwell are predicting a shake-out.
Mr Cain said the changes were likely to force out those untrained people who entered the conveyancing industry as a "fill-in job".
Ms Ludwell said her organisation had "a massive database of people coming into the industry and many have no idea what they are doing".
She welcomed the fact that training and experience would now be mandatory before people could call themselves conveyancers.
She said it would lead to "a clean-up of the industry" and would make it easier to prevent dubious practices, such as payments by some conveyancers to real estate agents to secure work. "I would hate to say kick-backs are widespread but we hear a lot of it goes on in the outer suburbs of Melbourne," she said.
The changes will mean conveyancers will no longer be required to pay solicitors to complete some aspects of conveyancing transactions. But Ms Ludwell said this would be balanced by the cost of the new compliance burden.
Although the changes will end the residual monopoly of solicitors, Mr Cain said he was not surprised by the Government's move. "What they have said is that if people other than lawyers are going to be engaged in the conveyancing business, then they need to be properly qualified and trained and have experience and insurance," he said.
"I think there is an acknowledgement there that when people buy a house it is the biggest thing they do in life and you have to protect them.
"I think the winners out of this are consumers because it will effectively drive the unqualified, uninsured and inexperienced players out of the market.
"It will mean that when somebody goes to have their conveyancing done, whether they go to a lawyer or a conveyancer they can be confident that the person has been trained and has experience in that aspect of the transaction," Mr Cain said.
He believed the loss of the monopoly would not affect the state's solicitors because conveyancers had been operating in Victoria for a decade.
The AIC's Mr Allen said the planned changes in Victoria and moves towards a national system of electronic conveyancing meant the Queensland Government would need to reconsider its ban on non-lawyer conveyancers.
Queensland Attorney-General Linda Lavarch agreed this week to meet a delegation of conveyancers.
But Ms Lavarch's spokesman said the main issue for the state was whether licensing non-lawyers to do conveyancing would benefit consumers and the state as a whole.
Mr Allen said the cost of conveyancing in Queensland was not exorbitant.
But opening the market would give consumers greater choice and would improve the level of service by some solicitors.
"Not every person wanting to do transactions wants to use a solicitor.
"There are many people out there, if given a choice, who would probably not use a solicitor," Mr Allen said.
"Competitive market forces also adjust prices."
Queensland consumers would not be placed at risk if non-lawyer conveyancers were to be licensed and regulated in the same way as they were in other states.
Coveyancers are planning a national summit to prepare their tactics for a renewed assault on the Queensland market.
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