Conveyancer or solicitor — who can do your conveyancing, and which should you choose?

Who can do conveyancing work?

Each state and territory has separate conveyancing laws and regulations, including who is legally permitted to perform conveyancing work for a fee.

In all states and territories except for Queensland and the Australian Capital Territory, licensed conveyancers or solicitors are permitted to represent transacting parties (such as buyers and sellers) in conveyancing transactions. In those two jurisdictions, only solicitors can represent transacting parties. In all states, conveyancers and conveyancing paralegals can work under the supervision of solicitors and licensed conveyancers (where permitted).

All solicitors and licensed conveyancers must maintain their continued professional development training and professional indemnity insurance for your protection in order to obtain and maintain their practising certificate or licence.

Solicitor vs Licensed Conveyancer

Scope of work

Solicitors and licensed conveyancers can act in a wide range of conveyancing transactions, such as purchase, sale, lease and mortgage of property, sale of business, etc. Providing financial, tax and investment advice is not within their scope of work. In states like NSW and Victoria, unlike solicitors, licensed conveyancers are not permitted to act in legal proceedings, probate matters, prepare wills, company constitution and trust deeds, etc.

Before engaging a conveyancer, consider what your transaction requires and check with the conveyancer or firm whether they practise in the areas of law you require. Many law firms employ both solicitors and licensed conveyancers and can undertake matters with various level of complexity.

States and Territories of Practice

Australian solicitors can practise in conveyancing transactions across Australia while a licensed conveyancer is generally only licensed to practise within their home state. However, certain states like NSW and Victoria have mutual recognition of interstate licensed conveyancers. This allows licensed conveyancers to practise outside their home state by making an application to the relevant authority.

Whether you are buying in your home state or interstate, ensure to engage the conveyancer that is permitted to practise in the state the property is located in. When in doubt, verify a solicitor's practising certificate or conveyancer's license with the relevant regulators noted in our table below for QLD, NSW and VIC.

Can you do your own conveyancing?

Legally you can act for yourself, but in practice the answer is generally no — and the reason is PEXA. Nothing stops you representing yourself on your own purchase: the rules that reserve conveyancing to solicitors (and, outside Queensland and the ACT, licensed conveyancers) only restrict doing the work for someone else for a fee.

The obstacle is settlement. Australian property transactions are now almost always settled electronically through PEXA, the country's near-ubiquitous settlement platform, and only registered subscribers — solicitors, licensed conveyancers and financial institutions — can access it. A self-represented buyer cannot subscribe to PEXA directly, which in practice removes the DIY route: you would still need to engage a solicitor or licensed conveyancer to lodge and complete settlement on your behalf.

Can a private individual use PEXA? No. PEXA access is limited to registered subscribers — solicitors, licensed conveyancers and financial institutions — so an individual buyer or seller cannot settle on it themselves.