Did you know the LPMA handles over 3,500 dealings per day? and for the uninitiated a dealing is a transaction that involves land.
So, what then is the LPMA? It stands for the recently renamed Land and Property Management Authority.
Firstly, it is the largest centralised land titles office in the world. Right here in Australia. Long story short, it manages land ownership records.
And for the record, the first recorded registrations were put into a register in 1802. Before that, well that was a whole lot of hit and proverbial miss. Some good stories here.
So, what is the relationship of this info to everyday purchasers and sellers of property today?
Well, for any sale or purchase, a contract is involved. The legal work involved in preparing the sales contract, mortgage and other related documents is called conveyancing.
Now who has heard of the Torrens System? And further, this system of registration having gone to many countries in the world, first originated here in Australia.
To complete it, yes Australia was the first automated system in the world.
So much for the background. Back to the here and now, and so to conveyancing:
What goes on behind the scenes to bring a purchase or sale to completion is a convoluted, potentially complex but interesting process, including numerous parties. For example an agent, vendor and purchasers can be quite visible. But then behind the scenes are an array of specialist services like a surveyor, building inspectors, insurers and valuers interacting with a variety of changing legislation, government bodies at a few levels, other solicitors or conveyancers and a plethora of financial institutions.
And every conveyance is different. Therein lies a challenge in itself.
And you thought you had a lot to think about in your capacity as vendor or purchaser.
An early and important part of the procedure is examining the contract itself. This includes much documentation, depending again on a variety of factors.
The detail has to be covered thoroughly as there are a number of potentially vested interests in any parcel of land. However, that is just the beginning.
All of the above has to be navigated within a certain time frame, which requires a level of dexterity mostly unseen by the person in the street.
Of course, the family home is known to often be the main asset of many Australians, and as such, calling for detailed attention.
Property law, I find to be a rather fascinating area of law to be in.