Teething Issues Are Not a Barrier—They're a Normal Part of Going Digital
/Western Australia has temporarily suspended several new electronic document types after a fault was discovered in PEXA’s handling of court-ordered and mortgagee-related transfers. Landgate’s decision to pause the rollout follows technical issues affecting instruments like survivorship, transmission, seizure, and court-ordered transfers.
On its face, this may seem like a setback. But for those of us who have worked in digital settlements across jurisdictions, it’s nothing new.
Teething problems have occurred in every state, and they’ve been worked through. Victoria had early issues with survivorship and lost title workflows. Queensland faced initial mismatches between eLodgment formats and Titles Registry workflows. NSW experienced delays around simultaneous settlements during the early days of e-conveyancing.
Each of these states has overcome those hurdles. Platform providers, land registries, ARNECC, and practitioners collaborated to resolve early pain points and develop reliable digital systems.
What this proves is simple: technical limitations are not permanent.
🔍 And That’s Exactly Why Interoperability Can Work
The very same technical, policy, and infrastructure coordination used to overcome state-based rollout issues is exactly what is needed to deliver interoperability between ELNOs.
If Landgate can work with PEXA to resolve a niche instrument fault, then it is equally possible—indeed expected—that ARNECC, state registries, and ELNOs can work together to enable seamless interoperability between platforms like PEXA and Sympli.
The argument that “it’s too hard” doesn’t hold water anymore. We've already solved harder things.
The recent PEXA issue in WA proves two key points:
No platform is immune to technical faults.
That’s exactly why we need competition and redundancy in the system.
Right now, nearly 89% of all electronic property settlements flow through a single system. When something breaks—even a minor function—it affects thousands of transactions and firms across the country.
Interoperability isn't about complexity. It’s about resilience, choice, and future-proofing the digital settlement system for the next 20 years.
🧾 Where to From Here?
Landgate will no doubt fix the issue. PEXA will patch and update its platform. The document types will return to production.
But as an industry, we must not let these isolated delays be used as arguments against interoperability. If we’ve been able to digitalise complex settlement types state by state, we are more than capable of opening the system to platform-level competition.
Interoperability is not a risk. Monopoly is.
see our post about the Australian Senate Enquiry
and
“Why Settling on a Friday Is a Risk – PEXA Outage Confirms What We've Always Said”
Published: 22 May 2025
https://www.victorianpropertysettlements.com.au/news/2025/5/22/why-settling-on-a-friday-is-a-risk-pexa-outage-confirms-what-weve-always-said
This article outlines real-world implications when monopoly infrastructure fails—reinforcing our long-standing recommendation that clients avoid Friday settlements due to cascading risks from system outages.