Conveyancing system faults creates opportunity for theft

Implications: Reform of the way secondary market transactions are handled are urgently required to mitigate risk for buyers, sellers and brokers

Analysis:  This story has been some time coming and I am surprised it has not happened sooner. The means of selling property on the secondary market leaves all involved exposed to an unreasonable amount of risk that could be easily mitigated by title insurance or more secure conveyancing practices including use of escrow accounts.

The scope for theft by the owner of a broker or the staff is unecessarily vast.