Real Property (Priority Notices and Other Measures) Amendment Bill

Second Reading

Adjourned debate on second reading.

(Continued from 18 March 2015.)

The Hon. T.T. NGO (15:38): Today I rise to support the Real Property (Priority Notices and Other Measures) Amendment Bill 2015. The Electronic Conveyancing National Law (South Australia) Act 2013 was assented to by the Governor on 5 December 2013. This act allows for the implementation of electronic conveyancing in South Australia. Electronic conveyancing is critical in maximising the efficiency of the real property transaction process, and provides for a single national legal framework to address inefficiencies between different jurisdictions.

This bill introduces two measures that lay the foundation for the introduction of electronic conveyancing. It strengthens the enforcement of verification of identity (VOI) requirements and introduces priority notices. Verification of identity requirements require parties to conveyancing instruments to verify their identity. These requirements are important to reduce the potential for fraud and other dishonest conduct when parties engage in property transactions.

Verification of identity requirements have been in place since April 2014. This amendment will strengthen their enforceability by giving them a sound statutory basis. It will provide the Registrar-General with the powers necessary to administer verification of identity requirements. This includes the power to inspect documents that relate to verification of identity. It also creates new offences in relation to verification of identity. These offences are: making a false statement, producing a false document and failing to retain a relevant document for the prescribed period.

A priority notice is a new instrument that reserves priority to a party that has a pending property transaction. It can be lodged by any person who intends to lodge a transfer, a mortgage, a caveat or any other instrument, and is effective for 60 days. Priority notices can be lodged for both paper and electronic instruments to ensure consistency between paper and electronic transactions.

Like the verification of identity measures, priority notices reduce the potential for fraudulent transactions and notify parties searching the title that another party intends to interact with the title. I have an article here from the ABC News website posted on Monday 13 September 2010, titled 'Fraud squad probes Perth housing scam', and I just want to read out a few things:

The Major Fraud Squad has been called in to investigate a scam after a Perth man's home was sold without his knowledge.

Roger Mildenhall was living overseas when he found out last week that his property in Karrinyup which, was worth almost $500,000, had been sold in June. He returned to Perth to find a second property he owned was also about to be sold. The scammers had organised the sale via email and telephone, even producing duplicates of the deeds to his house.

Detective Senior Sergeant Don Heise from the Major Fraud Squad says police are investigating whether the scammer is known to Mr Mildenhall.

The article quotes the detective:

"We have a number of previous complaints where family members have taken property off another family member, but if this is a true scam then it is the first of its kind," he said.

The article goes on:

Mr Mildenhall says he was flabbergasted when he heard the news. He says his neighbour told him about the sale last week and he returned to Perth just in time to stop the sale of the second property.

"They said that the house that was my rental property, had already been sold and that the locks had been changed in my own home and that was about to be sold as well," he said.

Mr Mildenhall has hired a lawyer in an attempt to get his property back and police are also investigating the scam. Consumer Protection Commissioner, Anne Driscoll, says it is not yet known how the scammers succeeded.

'This is a very rare event; I'm not aware of another occasion where this has happened and it's therefore absolutely critical that settlement agents and real estate agents verify carefully that the person they're organising a sale for is actually the owner of the property,' she said.

'The details of the scam need to be fully investigated for us to understand exactly what happened and how this dupe actually was so effective.'

Real Estate Institute West Australian (REIWA) spokeswoman Anne Arnold said…that agents need to be vigilant.

I must stress, these sorts of scams do not happen in our state, owing to our rigorous system that we have set up over the years. This bill also updates other provisions of the Real Property Act that concern crown leases.

It ensures that crown leases and instruments dealing with crown leases can be registered in the register book, like other property transactions. It also provides for decisions made by the Registrar-General to be reviewable by SACAT instead of by the Supreme Court which currently has the jurisdiction. I commend this bill to the house.

Debate adjourned on motion of Hon. G.A. Kandelaars.

At 15:47 the council adjourned until Tuesday 24 March 2015 at 14:15.