If you have been dealing with our Conveyancing team in recent times, you will have noticed the extra layers of security information we must collect to meet South Australia’s Verification Of Identity regulations.
In a further move to fight real estate fraud, Registrar-General, Brenton Pike, pictured, has briefed us on Priority Notices, a new document you’ll be hearing about when you next try to buy, sell or otherwise transfer property.
As you’ll see, there’s more to these notices than meets the eye.
What is a Priority Notice?
In short, a Priority Notice is a notice which is lodged against a certificate of title or Crown lease to reserve priority for a pending transaction that will affect that land.
The Priority Notice will stay in effect for 60 days and your conveyancer can have it extended for a further 30 days to cover longer settlement periods.
However, it is important to note that while they are purely optional, they will bring South Australia into line with states along the Eastern seaboard.
Why do we need Priority Notices?
As South Australia moves closer to electronic conveyancing, Priority Notices will play an important role in bridging the gap between some documents being lodged on paper and some electronically.
According to Brenton Pike, when Priority Notices are lodged, they will only be lodged electronically and will instantly update the registry so that in the near future the practice of requiring or producing Duplicate Certificates of Title will be over.
An obvious benefit is that instead of a title transfer process coming unstuck at the last minute due to an unknown claim, the Priority Notice will be available in title searches to alert conveyancers, banks and all interested parties to an intended transfer process, so that conflicting claims can be dealt with more readily.
From an anti-fraud perspective, Priority Notices will flag impending transfers more systematically, enabling fraudulent activity to be detected more easily.
How will Priority Notices affect you?
As a client of Eckermann Steinert Conveyancers, there is nothing you need to do.
We will guide you through the process and it is expected that the conveyancer of the purchaser will be the party given the responsibility for lodging the notification.
If you would like more detail, here is a video of the Registrar-General’s briefing. It runs about 40 minutes.
