Virtual assistants for conveyancers in Australia

Conveyancing is volume work with unforgiving deadlines. Every matter carries the same admin stack – searches, certificates, VOI, duties, workspace preparation, adjustments – and all of it is anchored to a settlement date that does not care how busy you are. When the market runs, the files multiply but the admin per file doesn’t shrink, and you end up doing paralegal work at 9pm so the legal work can happen at 9am.

This page covers what a virtual assistant actually does inside a conveyancing practice – specifically, not as a generic pitch. If conveyancing is one desk inside a broader firm, the law firm VA page is the parent picture.

The conveyancing admin pattern

Four time-sinks define the trade:

• The volume crunch. Contract reviews queue behind settlements, settlements queue behind exchanges, and the pre-exchange admin – searches ordered, certificates chased, VOI booked – starts later than it should on every file.
• E-settlement admin. PEXA didn’t remove the work, it moved it: workspaces to create and populate, parties to invite, documents to upload, figures to balance, and the other side to chase when their workspace tasks sit incomplete for days.
• Searches and certificates. Title, plan, rates, water, land tax, body corporate or owners corporation – mechanical to order through triSearch, Dye & Durham (formerly GlobalX) or InfoTrack, but they must be ordered, chased and checked on every matter, in the right sequence.
• Milestone tracking. Cooling-off expiry, finance approval, building and pest, unconditional date, settlement. A date that never made it into the practice management system is how settlements blow out.

A VA scoped properly takes all four.

What to delegate first

For the first 30 days, the highest-return scope is matter opening plus the search-and-certificate cycle.

Matter opening:

• File setup in Smokeball, LEAP or triConvey from your intake template: parties, property, contract dates
• Conflict-check coordination, engagement and cost-disclosure paperwork sent and chased
• Critical dates entered with reminders, so the file polices itself instead of relying on your memory
• Consistent file naming and document filing, so any matter can be picked up cold

Searches and certificates:

• Ordering through your search provider, matched to the matter type and state
• Chasing slow certificates before they slow the matter
• Saving results against the file and flagging anything on the face of a search that needs your eyes – the flagging is admin, the judgement on it is yours

That’s typically 8-12 hours a week in a practice settling at volume. Once it’s owned cleanly, layer on the PEXA preparation and settlement-figure work.

Practices running LEAP have a dedicated page on what a VA does inside LEAP, settlement adjustment sheets included.

PEXA and the e-settlement file

Electronic settlement is now the default across NSW, Victoria and Queensland, and the admin around a PEXA workspace is exactly the kind of structured, repeatable work a VA does well:

• Creating or accepting the workspace and populating party and property details
• Uploading documents and entering settlement figures for your review
• Monitoring workspace status daily, chasing the other side and the discharging mortgagee when tasks stall
• Preparing settlement statements and adjustments – rates, water usage, levies apportioned to settlement – balanced against the workspace before you book

The line is bright and we keep it that way: PEXA signing rights stay with your authorised signatories. Your VA is a non-signing user under your subscription. They prepare; you verify and sign.

The same line applies to VOI. Verification of identity is your reasonable-steps obligation and it stays with you or your identity agent. The VA coordinates it: books the appointment, sends the document checklist, chases the Client Authorisation form, files the completed report. Coordination is most of the delay, and coordination is delegable.

NSW, VIC, QLD: the state question

Conveyancing does not generalise across borders, and a VA who pretends otherwise is a liability. What we do instead is train to your state’s workflow:

• NSW – vendor disclosure contract packs with the prescribed documents, section 10.7 planning certificates, requisitions, transfer duty and purchaser/transferee declarations through Revenue NSW.
• VIC – section 32 vendor statements assembled for your review, owners corporation certificates, the State Revenue Office’s Digital Duties Form workflow.
• QLD – REIQ contract administration, the seller disclosure regime that commenced on 1 August 2025 under the Property Law Act 2023, transfer duty through the Queensland Revenue Office. Queensland conveyancing sits with solicitors rather than licensed conveyancers, so in QLD this support lives inside a law firm.

Your VA learns one state’s process deeply – yours – on your precedents and your checklists. If you act across two states, that’s two checklists, not a claim that anyone knows all eight jurisdictions.

The compliance question

Three lines, all hard:

• Advice and signing stay licensed. Whether you’re a licensed conveyancer or a solicitor, the conveyancing work – advice, contract review, certification, signing – is yours. The VA drafts, assembles, orders, chases and formats. “Can we push settlement out three days?” is an advice question; it escalates to you under a written rule, every time.
• Trust money is untouchable. Your VA is never an authorised signatory and never operates the trust account. They prepare settlement figures and reconciliation paperwork for your review; receipting and trust obligations stay with the principal.
• Privacy. Contracts, VOI documents and finance details are exactly the data the Australian Privacy Principles care about. Your VA gets a 1Password Teams seat, role-scoped access in your practice software and PEXA, a signed confidentiality agreement on day one, and an APP-mirroring data addendum on request. How we vet covers the screening behind that.

What it costs

A matter-admin VA at $12-17 AUD per hour owns matter opening, searches, comms and milestone tracking – $1,000-1,700 a month at 15-20 hours a week. Senior paralegal-style support at $18-25/hr adds PEXA workspace preparation, settlement statements and contract-pack assembly. Office-account bookkeeping is $25-35/hr if you want it under the same roof.

Against a local conveyancing clerk, that’s roughly a third of the cost, working your Australian business hours. Run your own numbers on the calculator.

One more thing worth knowing: most conveyancing work arrives from agents. The real estate and property management pages cover the other side of those referral relationships.

How a placement starts

Placement takes 7-10 days. The first 30 follow the standard ramp: shadow week with daily 15-minute check-ins, matter opening and search ordering by week two, PEXA preparation and client comms under the practice’s name by week three or four, then the day-30 review. If it’s not working by day 30, we recalibrate or replace – that’s the guarantee.

The fastest way to find out whether this fits your practice is the free discovery call. Thirty minutes, no card, no obligation – bring the matter list that’s keeping you up and we’ll tell you honestly whether a VA solves it.