The future of conveyancing is digital, but still human

The fact that Ian Perkins is running a digital conveyancing firm from a remote farm in central New South Wales, Australia, says a lot about how the industry has changed.

Perkins, a former Corrs Chambers Westgarth solicitor, ditched city life 25 years ago to live with Richard Bootle, his business partner, on a 6th-generation cropping and cattle property near Nyngan, a rural town of about 2500 people. 

In 2014, they set about propelling their firm Lawlab into a national digital conveyancing powerhouse. It has since successfully handled more than 60,000 transactions via a streamlined digital service. 

“It has been fun and I get the best of both worlds — I enjoy my city time and the intellectual interest of a business that I am passionate about, but I still get to live with my cows,” says Perkins, who co-leads a team of about 50 lawyers and employees with Bootle.

Perkins says the COVID-19 pandemic was a game changer for Lawlab, as it resulted in many property purchasers not only accepting digital conveyancing but preferring it.

“What was a barrier for us six or seven years ago is now a strength for us as digital natives.”

PEXA and other digital conveyancing portals

Automation continues to reshape conveyancing, a process that once relied on paper trails, emails, manual searches and time-consuming settlements.

One of the latest innovations is CommBank’s Home-in service, which lets homebuyers access conveyancing, digital contract reviews and settlement support through one app. 

It builds on earlier infrastructure such as Property Exchange Australia (PEXA), the dominant property settlement solution in Australia that digitises settlements and title transfers. 

Joel Barolsky, a strategy advisor to professional services firms and a senior fellow at The University of Melbourne Law School, Australia, says it is clear that AI-driven technology is “sweeping across the legal world” and disrupting some legal process work. 

However, he thinks the jury is out on the ultimate impact new artificial intelligence (AI) platforms will have on conveyancing because it is a “pretty automated process already”.

“Conveyancing has been subject to extensive technological innovation for the past 20 years,” Barolsky says. The question now will be how much more there is to “squeeze” out of the conveyancing process using new AI technology. 

He expects Lawlab-style hybrid models to continue to be popular on the back of a combination of high-quality teams of human lawyers and efficient AI bots.

“You are still going to need a person with suitable qualifications to review the various conveyancing elements of the property transfer.”

Some jurisdictions are more progressive than others. In Singapore, conveyancing is undergoing reforms that shine a light on what full property settlement automation could look like. 

The government is backing the Digital Conveyancing Portal, a platform developed by the Singapore Land Authority that enables all transactions, from documentation to payments, to be completed electronically, thereby reducing administrative burden.

Elsewhere, the UK government is backing “AI growth labs” to build and test AI technology for the legal sector, including tools for faster conveyancing during property sales.

Ethical risks of bank-led conveyancing platforms

For property buyers, the appeal of quick and easy digital conveyancing services is clear. Automation can reduce duplication, accelerate document processing, flag missing information and provide greater visibility over a transaction. AI can go further by reviewing contracts and helping professionals detect potential problems.

The question is whether the convenience of automation could come at the cost of customer choice if banks embed conveyancing into their platforms, instead of leaving it to lawyers.

CommBank’s Home-in showcases a more vertically integrated model, whereby a major lender can connect finance, property services and conveyancing within the same customer journey.

That may make buying a home easier, but it also raises questions for purchasers who may reasonably want their conveyancer to assess a transaction independently of the bank that is providing their mortgage. 

Shakila Maclean, founder of All Hours Conveyancing and president of the Australian Institute of Conveyancers (Victoria division), says consumers need to put a premium on independence.

“People really need someone whose responsibility is to look after their needs and interests as they purchase or sell a property,” she says. 

“If conveyancing becomes embedded into these ecosystems or apps, consumers need to be careful that convenience does not come at the expense of independence.”

Barolsky believes that if property purchasers treat the process as “a check-box exercise,” they may think they are getting a great deal, but in reality, they may be exposing themselves to added risk. 

“Many may not understand the intricacies and the importance of the conveyancing service,” says Barolsky, who warns that such complacency could really hurt property buyers in the “2 per cent of cases where something goes wrong”.

The importance of professional oversight in automated property transfers

Buying a property is often the most expensive — and emotional — transaction that people will make in their lives. Therefore, human skills such as communication and relationship building are still likely to play a role in conveyancing.

Maclean says that humans can add a layer of context and judgement that digital platforms may lack. Is a contractual provision unusual? Does an anomaly in a title create risk? Is the transaction appropriate for the client’s circumstances? These are questions where professional independence, experience and accountability remain critical.

 

"People really need someone whose responsibility is to look after their needs and interests as they purchase or sell a property. If conveyancing becomes embedded into these ecosystems or apps, consumers need to be careful that convenience does not come at the expense of independence."

 

“If a transaction does not look right, we understand the context and know when to further investigate,” she continues. “That still requires someone with skill and experience.”

Modern conveyancing is becoming more complex, courtesy of regulatory burdens, anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing reforms, and cybersecurity threats. 

Clients expect transactions to happen quite quickly and conveniently, Maclean says, “but people need to understand and value the work that a conveyancer does. Technology will change how we do conveyancing, but it does not change why clients need a good conveyancer.”

The focus of conveyancing experts may evolve

For Perkins, the future model for conveyancing includes an increasingly critical role for AI. 

“In a nutshell, all the administrative work will be done by AI within five years,” he says. “But I see a role for the lawyer, accountant, broker or agent in managing the relationships and dealing with complex advice or new situations.”

Just as the travel industry has evolved to a point where individual travellers handle simple, everyday bookings while human experts help manage more complex travel arrangements, Perkins expects conveyancing experts to ultimately focus on the more sophisticated transactions.

 

"In a nutshell, all the administrative work will be done by AI within five years. But I see a role for the lawyer, accountant, broker or agent in managing the relationships and dealing with complex advice or new situations."

 

“I do not think lawyers are going away — but we are going to be pushed into a quality or niche space.”

Lawlab is always seeking to expand or improve its services, including through its BuySecure AI property contract and vendor disclosure review tool. 

“It is completely scalable, so we could do 100,000 contract reviews … without hiring any more people,” Perkins says.

The key for any new innovations, he continues, will be to ensure that strict guardrails apply to the rollout of new solutions that are not “infested” with inaccurate data from social media and AI chatbots.

Ultimately, according to Perkins, there will be two fronts to the digital transformation — process improvements for property buyers and operational improvements for conveyancers.

“Our lawyers’ working environment is evolving and changing very quickly. I think there is a wave to be surfed here, and if you are not riding that wave and going with it, you will get smashed by it.”

 

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