Earlier this month, the NSW government introduced a new Office of State Revenue (OSR) purchaser declaration law, which will disallow the use of e-signatures, meaning buyers will have to manually sign documents for their property transactions.

Speaking with Lawyers Weekly, lawlab director Ian Perkins (pictured) said property lawyers will feel negative flow-on effects as a result of this new requirement, labelling it a “step backwards” for the industry.

“People are busy, and asking them to leave work and physically travel somewhere, through the traffic, to sign a document is archaic,” he said.

“The only reason for signing a document, as all lawyers know, is to give evidence to the deal or to give evidence to the statement. That evidence can be given by a digital signature.

“The other thing is digital signatures can be geo-positioned – there’s security around that – so it’s probably less likely to be a fraudulent signature than a paper one.”

Mr Perkins said as far as he knows, no industry consultation took place ahead of the law being enacted, therefore he expects there to be “a little bit of backlash” from legal practitioners.

“It’s gone through without consideration for both what the taxpayers in NSW want, in terms of the way they want their legal services delivered to them, [and] it was delivered without regard to the industry, which has invested significant money in the last couple of years in providing a streamlined, cost-effective digital solution to customers,” he said.

“So it’s a step back that [has] reintroduced rep tape into this space for individuals and businesses.

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“It seems to be overkill in the circumstances.”

Mr Perkins noted that e-signatures improve the ease of transactions, while making the experience a positive one for customers.

“What we [were] seeing for the first time [was] the possibility of providing commoditised services to consumers,” he said.

“That kind of service that businesses have had access to, with technology, makes it available to every single person in Australia.”

Emma Musgrave

Emma Musgrave (née Ryan) is the managing editor, professional services at Momentum Media.

Emma has worked for Momentum Media since 2015, including five years spent as the editor of the company's legal brand - Lawyers Weekly. Throughout her time at Momentum, she has been responsible for breaking some of the biggest stories in corporate Australia. In addition, she has produced exclusive multimedia and event content related to the company's respective brands and audiences. 

Prior to joining Momentum Media, Emma worked in breakfast radio, delivering news to the Central West region of NSW, before taking on a radio journalist role at Southern Cross Austereo, based in Townsville, North Queensland.

She holds a Bachelor of Communications (Journalism) degree from Charles Sturt University. 

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