Lavington conveyancer achieves PEXA certification

Peta Stewart this week received an award from Property Exchange Australia, or PEXA, for her early adoption of the process.

In the past 13 months, Ms Stewart has completed nearly 80 settlements using PEXA, which will become mandatory in NSW and Victoria in 2019.

“It’s so much safer for my clients, it’s efficient and the benefits of it far outweigh the old dated system of settlements,” she said.

“I have lot of clients interstate or that buy and sell from different areas and it means that you can link all those transactions.

“Once we explain to them the benefits I haven’t had one client decline to use the system.”

Instigated by the Council of Australian Governments, e-conveyancing aims to reduce paperwork and manual handling, with documents lodged electronically. Potential issues such as postal delays, public holidays or additional fees for bank cheques are removed.

Thirty-seven people attended PEXA’s regional Victoria roadshow in Wodonga on Wednesday to learn more about e-conveyancing.

PEXA chief customer officer Lisa Dowie said $59 billion worth of property value had now been settled electronically via PEXA and any technical issues worked through over 2.5 years.

“That’s well behind us and I think we’re definitely robust enough to take all the volumes across Australia,” she said.

Questions at Wednesday’s forum also showed Albury-Wodonga professionals had moved beyond any initial “What if the power goes out?” phase.

“People are already starting to use it and wanting to get into the finer details,” Ms Dowie said.

PEXA Direct specialist Albury-Wodonga Helen Eames praised Ms Stewart’s adoption of e-conveyancing.

“She’s definitely proactive in assisting everyone else to get on to the system,” Mrs Eames said.

Ms Stewart said with more people joining PEXA, the proportion of online transactions continued to grow.

“I’d probably do five PEXA settlements to one paper settlement,” she said.