Pexa

Surfers Paradise was the only suburb outside of Victoria &nbsp;to make the top 10 busiest locations for property settlements.

The data was for digital settlements between January and August this year on the PEXA Exchange.

With around 1400 settlements, Surfers Paradise sat in sixth place on the list which was headed by the Melbourne LGA with over 2500 settlements.

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Tarneit sat in second place followed by Trugannina, Clyde North and Pakenham.

The top 10 was rounded out by Craigieburn, Werribee, Point Cook and Wallert with some 1100 settlements.

Mike Gill, the head of research at PEXA noted, eight of the top 10 suburbs were located in Victorian growth corridors and likely reflected the impact of the Federal Government&rsquo;s HomeBuilder scheme which offered $25K grants.

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The scheme ended in March 2021.

Surfers Paradise lead the Queensland localities followed by Southport, Maroochydore, Buderim, Hope Island, Caboolture, Coomera, Pimpama, Robina and Helensvale.

NSW&#39;s busiest locations for settlements were Sydney, Schofields, Port Macquarie Orange, Dubbo, Leppington, Marsden Park, Austral and Blacktown.

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The top 10 suburbs analysis only includes property sales settled digitally via PEXA, so excludes any paper based settlements.&nbsp;

By August 2021, over 98% of sale settlements were lodged digitally in Victoria, NSW, and SA, with over 85% in WA and 65% in QLD.&nbsp;

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Surfers Paradise ranks sixth most busiest property market across Australia: PEXA

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Former MasterChef contestant Dani Venn and her husband Chris Burgess had fears some $250,000 from the proceeds of their home sale had been lost, through their conveyancing which was utilising PEXA, Australia's new online property transfer system. 

Property Exchange Australia (PEXA) has come out and advised the PEXA system wasn't hacked. 

However the company, whose platform allows financial settlements to be completed electronically, has announced however that they have "begun work developing additional alerts and processes to further enhance security in the system."

The money was stolen from their conveyancer's PEXA account with a cyber criminal setting up a false user.

The conveyancer was transferring the funds to their bank account to complete the settlement for the new property, however the money was taken by a hacker who hacked into the conveyancer’s email account, pressing the ‘forgot password’ button, intercepting the email to create a new password, logging in and unbeknown to the conveyancer created a new user.

The hacker changed the bank details to their bank account. 

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PEXA initially claimed that they were not liable for a hacker compromising the workspace of a user’s account and that they have a two-step verification process.

The Venn's had just sold their Melbourne home, with a move to the Mornington Peninsula on the horizon.

Venn said it was always their dream to live near the sea.

They moved out of their old house on June 22 and a day later Venn posted to Facebook to say they had 12 days to come up with around $120,000 or lose $80,000 house deposit for their new home and more.

"We are living every family's worst nightmare", Venn told Fairfax Media which featured her plight on the front page of The Age.

Dani and the kids moved in with her mother, while Chris slept in a caravan. 

"We were told that our money had been stolen and redirected to a CBA account, the CBA were informed by PEXA and froze that money.

"We were told that the ‘funds had been frozen’ but the CBA would not put in writing that this was the case.

"We were made to believe our money was recoverable. It was not until the CBA made our conveyancer sign an indemnity form, wiping their hands of all responsibility, that they told us a few minutes before our new property was due to be settled on Wednesday that approx $107,000 was missing and was unrecoverable.

"We’ve never experienced anything like this feeling, total utter heartbreak and disgust in the system we have trusted in all our lives and a government that is supposed to protect us from ever being in a situation like this."

Venn started a GoFundMe page in an ambitious attempt to recoup $120,000 before they defaulted on their new purchase.

Titled Hacked out of home, the page raised over $15,000 in one day of posting.

Donations have slowed and the page has seen $16,981 given by 72 people.

<a href="https://www.2gb.com/masterchef-stars-dream-a-complete-nightmare-as-hackers-steal-thousands/" target="_blank">Tonight speaking with 2GB's Ross Greenwood</a>, Dani said PEXA had last Friday attempted to “blackmail” her and her husband into accepting a loan after she indicated she'd be taking the story to further media.

Since Dani’s story aired on A Current Affair, PEXA has agreed to pay her and her family the full amount that was stolen.

She told Greenwood it was a terrifying experience, adding that over the past week funds has been progressively recovered amounts including $59,000 this afternoon so that not as much was missing.

“You can’t ever describe it.

“It’s just this sick pit in your stomach, you feel angry and frustrated, disappointed in the system you’ve only put faith in your whole life.

“Most people have worked so hard to get a house deposit in the first place and you just feel your whole life savings ripped from underneath you through no fault of your own.

“What was worrying was that there was no alert to notify our conveyancer there was a new user on his system.”

Richard Smith, founder of specialist insurtech Edmund Cyber Insurance, said real estate agents underestimate the threat of cyber crime.

“The threat to real estate agents is the same as it is for larger businesses, but unfortunately, many of them under-estimate it”, Smith said.

“The concern is that criminals are now directly targeting real estate agents and there are a number of reasons why, including the perception that they are easier to attack, because their security policies are not robust or sophisticated.”

The big four banks, state governments and Macquarie Group are all shareholders in PEXA.

There had been plans for a $1.1 billion sharemarket listing but The Australian Data Room column has suggested the prospect of listing has faded. 

PEXA have said the hacking incident won't affect any mooted plans.

 

 

 

 

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Masterchef's Dani Venn gets funds back after accusing PEXA of blackmail after conveyancing scam

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The Masterchef conveyancing fraud has put the PEXA conveyancing system in the spotlight.
It involved missing funds for a <a href="https://www.urban.com.au/news/85714-masterchef-s-dani-venn-gets-funds-back-after-accusing-pexa-of-blackmail-after-conveyancing-scam" target="_blank">Mornington Peninsula purchase</a> by the celebrity chef Dani Venn.
But PEXA was warned all clients of the new conveyancing system that the past fortnight has seen similar breaches in less publicised conveyancing matters.
While the PEXA system has not been breached, the contributing legal and estate agency parties appear highly vunerable under emerging e-conveyancing system.
PEXA suggest the fraudster appears to have gained access to a subscriber’s email account and intercepted a change of password email allowing them to change the subscriber’s password. This then allowed them to create a new user account which gave them access to the workspace where they changed the bank account details that had already been entered. 
When the subscriber returned to the workspace to complete the transaction they did not notice the account details had been changed and the transaction was completed with money transferred to the wrong account.
Property Observer understands there were two further serious frauds in May.
One was in mid-May, when a client lost about $700,000, and the other on May 31 when a client lost more than $1 million.
"It concerns me when Pexa claims the Masterchef scam story was/is one of a few 'isolated incidents'," a Sydney legal agent familiar with the frauds advised. 
He saw an amount of $672,000 scammed in a May 14 settlement on a $750,000 property sale. 
When no moneys were deposited in bank accounts by the 18th, the conveyancer realised the bank account details she received (ANZ,CBA,NAB) were not the same as the bank accounts that had been emailed to her, which were three NAB accounts. 
PEXA was immediately notified by the solicitor, then PEXA notified all banks to freeze the fraudulent bank accounts where $672,000 was deposited and distributed over the three unknown bank accounts.
The moneys in the CBA and NAB fraudsters accounts were not withdrawn with the funds now frozen.
This totalled $508,000.
The red tape the solicitor and the conveyancer have been going through with these banks to date "has been unbearably tedious, slow, lethargic and unprofessional to say the least."
The CBA advised the solicitor that the case was the first scam incident since PEXA introduced the electronic settlement system a few months ago.
CBA advised the bank was in the process of setting up internal procedures to protect/deal with, from potentially future such incidences, using this case as their prototype in their new system.
Accordingly they will only release the frozen moneys back to the vendor when they finish this process.
The fraudsters ANZ account had $165,000 deposited, but all these funds have been withdrawn over four transactions and transferred to accounts in Thailand.
Of these funds, $39,000 has since been recovered by the ANZ and returned to the solicitor's trust account.
The ANZ says they were not able to retrieve the rest, "end of case, end of story as far as they are concerned."
After the CBA and NAB finally reimburse/return the frozen funds, the vendor will be $126,000 short of the total $672,000 settlement moneys.
It is possible the conveyancer's computer was not necessarily the only one hacked or in fact where the hacking originated from.
"Frantically and immediately trying to find out where things went wrong," an IT expert scoured through emails and computer, and discovered, in the raw data of the emails that both the conveyancer's and real estate agent emails requesting the bank account details for settlement funds had both been hacked.
It was found the hacker's email addresses embedded in their emails.
"This hacker's email address is also being programmed so that when the reply button to these email requests (from both real estate and conveyancer) emails are redirected/diverted to the hackers email address, they in turn change the account details, keep the body of the email intact as the original email and forward it onto the conveyancer and real estate agents as though the emails are sent from the law agents, "so we are all, none the wiser."
The deposit funds saved from the hackers arose because the office receptionist was away and the real estate agent couldn't get into the computer.
Instead the bank account details were sent via sms, and the moneys were promptly deposited into the correct account on settlement day.
"Had the office girl been at work that day, the $65,000 would have been destined to yet another of the hackers bank accounts," they concluded.
All this was reported to the police fraud dept on May 19, but the vendor was told, verbally and over the phone, "to let it roll with/via the solicitors and if I still have a problem after that, to come back to the Police."
These funds were destined for nursing home requirements.
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PEXA warning as NSW conveyancing fraud funds end up in Thailand

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Former MasterChef contestant Dani Venn and her husband Chris Burgess had fears some $250,000 from the proceeds of their home sale had been lost, through their conveyancing which was utilising PEXA, Australia's new online property transfer system. 
Property Exchange Australia (PEXA) has come out and advised the PEXA system wasn't hacked. 
However the company, whose platform allows financial settlements to be completed electronically, has announced however that they have "begun work developing additional alerts and processes to further enhance security in the system."
The money was stolen from their conveyancer's PEXA account with a cyber criminal setting up a false user.
The conveyancer was transferring the funds to their bank account to complete the settlement for the new property, however the money was taken by a hacker who hacked into the conveyancer’s email account, pressing the ‘forgot password’ button, intercepting the email to create a new password, logging in and unbeknown to the conveyancer created a new user.
The hacker changed the bank details to their bank account. 
PEXA initially claimed that they were not liable for a hacker compromising the workspace of a user’s account and that they have a two-step verification process.
The Venn's had just sold their Melbourne home, with a move to the Mornington Peninsula on the horizon.
Venn said it was always their dream to live near the sea.
They moved out of their old house on June 22 and a day later Venn posted to Facebook to say they had 12 days to come up with around $120,000 or lose $80,000 house deposit for their new home and more.
"We are living every family's worst nightmare", Venn told Fairfax Media which featured her plight on the front page of The Age.
Dani and the kids moved in with her mother, while Chris slept in a caravan. 
"We were told that our money had been stolen and redirected to a CBA account, the CBA were informed by PEXA and froze that money.
"We were told that the ‘funds had been frozen’ but the CBA would not put in writing that this was the case.
"We were made to believe our money was recoverable. It was not until the CBA made our conveyancer sign an indemnity form, wiping their hands of all responsibility, that they told us a few minutes before our new property was due to be settled on Wednesday that approx $107,000 was missing and was unrecoverable.
"We’ve never experienced anything like this feeling, total utter heartbreak and disgust in the system we have trusted in all our lives and a government that is supposed to protect us from ever being in a situation like this."
Venn started a GoFundMe page in an ambitious attempt to recoup $120,000 before they defaulted on their new purchase.
Titled Hacked out of home, the page raised over $15,000 in one day of posting.
Donations have slowed and the page has seen $16,981 given by 72 people.
<a href="https://www.2gb.com/masterchef-stars-dream-a-complete-nightmare-as-hackers-steal-thousands/" target="_blank">Tonight speaking with 2GB's Ross Greenwood</a>, Dani said PEXA had last Friday attempted to “blackmail” her and her husband into accepting a loan on condition that she didn’t criticise them after she indicated she'd be taking the story public to the media.
Since Dani’s story also aired on A Current Affair, PEXA has agreed to pay the full amount that was stolen.
"This is the only sensible decision that PEXA could have made and it beggars belief that it took pressure from ACA to achieve it," ACA host Tracey Grimshaw said.
Venn told Greenwood it was a terrifying experience, adding that over the past week funds had been progressively recovered amounts including $59,000 this afternoon so that not as much was missing.
“You can’t ever describe it.
“It’s just this sick pit in your stomach, you feel angry and frustrated, disappointed in the system you’ve only put faith in your whole life.
“Most people have worked so hard to get a house deposit in the first place and you just feel your whole life savings ripped from underneath you through no fault of your own.
“What was worrying was that there was no alert to notify our conveyancer there was a new user on his system.”
Richard Smith, founder of specialist insurtech Edmund Cyber Insurance, said real estate agents underestimate the threat of cyber crime.
“The threat to real estate agents is the same as it is for larger businesses, but unfortunately, many of them under-estimate it”, Smith said.
“The concern is that criminals are now directly targeting real estate agents and there are a number of reasons why, including the perception that they are easier to attack, because their security policies are not robust or sophisticated.”
The big four banks, state governments and Macquarie Group are all shareholders in PEXA.
There had been plans for a $1.1 billion sharemarket listing but The Australian DataRoom column has suggested the prospect of listing has faded. 
PEXA, who have been approached for comment, had previously said the hacking incident won't affect any mooted plans.
 
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Masterchef's Dani Venn pries funds back after accusing PEXA of blackmail after conveyancing scam

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The E-conveyancer PEXA have announced they are introducing a new consumer guarantee for transactions conducted on its platform.
It will provide greater safeguards to property buyers and sellers whose conveyancer or lawyer uses PEXA.
"We're assisting the conveyancers and lawyers who use our platform to uphold the highest possible security standards," James Ruddock, the acting CEO advised.
"We understand the importance of security to the industry as a whole, and as a result PEXA will be introducing a new consumer guarantee for transactions conducted on our platform.
Its anticipates the guarantee will go above and beyond any guarantee available in the paper-based settlement process. 
<a href="https://www.urban.com.au/news/85714-masterchef-s-dani-venn-gets-funds-back-after-accusing-pexa-of-blackmail-after-conveyancing-scam" target="_blank">Following an incident reported to PEXA</a> on 31 May, PEXA sped up existing plans to introduce multi-factor verification.
"When PEXA was alerted to a second incident, we immediately increased our monitoring of potential unusual activity surrounding password resets, new user creations and changes to BSB and account numbers," he noted.
"We know that buying and selling a home is an emotional time and understand the stress that can be felt when things don’t go to plan. "We clearly regret the distress felt by those impacted in these two recent events and will ensure all outstanding funds are covered, without condition," Ruddock said.
The fraudster appears to have gained access to a subscriber’s email account and intercepted a change of password email allowing them to change the subscriber’s password. This then allowed them to create a new user account which gave them access to the workspace where they changed the bank account details that had already been entered. 
When the subscriber returned to the workspace to complete the transaction they did not notice the account details had been changed and the transaction was completed with money transferred to the wrong account.
In addition to existing cyber security systems and processes, PEXA are assisting the conveyancers and lawyers by:
<ul>
<li>Reinforcing and strengthening existing scanning measures, including implementing daily monitoring in relation to password reset activity, new users and change of account details; including follow-up with our Members;</li>
<li>Creating new users in an “inactive” mode, meaning only PEXA can activate all new users on your behalf after confirming the new user with you;</li>
<li>Introducing Workspace time stamps so you can see who and when the Workspace was last updated; and</li>
<li>Introducing an additional verification layer upon sign-in.</li>
</ul>
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PEXA to introduce multi-factor verification to thwart conveyancing fraud 

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A Sydney couple in their 90s are the latest victim of conveyancing fraud.
The couple's $672,000 sales proceed were diverted into three different bank accounts by the fraudster as they capitalised on the flaws in the new world of e-conveyancing which seeks to avoid the perils of email phishing in the digital space. 
Digital platforms now allow property settlements to be completed electronically rather than with face to face paper documentation.
The fraud followed former <a href="https://www.urban.com.au/news/85714-masterchef-s-dani-venn-gets-funds-back-after-accusing-pexa-of-blackmail-after-conveyancing-scam" target="_blank">MasterChef contestant Dani Venn and her husband Chris Burgess</a> who were caught in a fraud involving $250,000 from the proceeds of their Melbourne home sale after a cyber criminal set up a false user account.
The e-conveyancer PEXA have since announced they will cover any lost funds for Dani and Chris and are introducing a new consumer guarantee for all transactions conducted on its platform.
It will also endeavour to provide greater safeguards to property buyers and sellers through the introduction of multi-factor verification.
The Sydney fraud involved the settlement last month of a $750,000 property sale where the proceeds were to go toward the vendor's nursing home needs.
Banks quickly froze the bulk of the funds, but not before the fraudsters transferred some to Thailand.
The scammers had the funds deposited into their accounts at ANZ, CBA and NAB after hacking the emails of the estate agent and conveyancers.
At this stage it is calculated the vendor will be $126,000 short after the banks get around to depositing the funds back to the vendor.
"We were frantically and immediately trying to find out where things went wrong," the victim's son advised.
"These funds are their life savings," he said.
It was found the hacker's email addresses embedded in the emails of both the estate agent and conveyancer.
It was reported to the police fraud department, but the vendor was told it was firstly a matter for the banks.
"We're assisting the conveyancers and lawyers who use our platform to uphold the highest possible security standards," James Ruddock, the acting PEXA CEO advised.
"We understand the importance of security to the industry as a whole, and as a result PEXA will be introducing a new consumer guarantee for transactions conducted on our platform."
"We know that buying and selling a home is an emotional time and understand the stress that can be felt when things don’t go to plan. "We clearly regret the distress felt by those impacted," Ruddock said. 
"These are extremely isolated incidents," he added.
But nearly 600 conveyancers have signed a petition to delay the rollout of Australia's new online property transfer platform after the breaches.
The electronic platform is owned by state governments and Australia's big banks.  
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Conveyancers seek delay the rollout of PEXA's new online property transfer platform after breaches

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Property Exchange Australia (PEXA) has expanded the capabilities of its e-conveyancing platform in response to recent legislative changes concerning payment of GST at settlement.
The change, effective 1 July 2018, now requires property purchasers to pay GST on the price of new residential premises or potential residential land directly to the Australian Taxation Office (ATO).
Previously, developers were responsible for this payment.
The introduction of this new legislation is primarily designed to reduce the $1.8 billion owing in GST payments to the Federal Government, and to eliminate the practice of ‘phoenixing’, a process by which a company declares insolvency, but reforms under a new name to avoid paying debts and taxes.
PEXA executive Mike Cameron,said the visibility for all parties is a major benefit of a more streamlined, digital process.
"The PEXA platform provides transparency for all parties and added assurance that the new process has been adhered to," Cameron said. 
"The ability to complete GST at settlement through an e-Conveyancing transaction provides certainty for all involved in property exchange."
Australian Institute of Conveyancers (AIC) national president, Shane Jacob, said through PEXA "we have the clarity we don’t get in the paper-based world that the GST for relevant properties had been captured".
 
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PEXA streamlines GST payments on new property purchases

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Property Exchange Australia Limited (PEXA) has been sold to a consortium headed by Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA), alongside Link Administration Holdings Limited and Morgan Stanley Infrastructure Partners Inc..
It submitted a bid which has now been accepted by shareholders holding a majority of PEXA's shares. 
The long touted Property Exchange Australia float was recently scrappe, paving the way for Link Group and its partners to take a majority stake.
PEXA assists members, such as lawyers, conveyancers and financial institutions, to lodge documents with Land Registries and complete financial settlements electronically. 
States across Australia have been moving across to the platform as the country aims for loans to become 100% digital.
The consortium will pay an enterprise value of up to $1.6 billion, depending on the level of final acceptances to the trade sale offer received by PEXA’s shareholders.
CBA was already a key stakeholder in the e-conveyancing platform. 
CBA chief executive officer Matt Comyn said having been a key stakeholder in PEXA since its inception in 2011, the decision represented its continued commitment to "support the property industry as it transitions towards an innovative, fully digital, settlements process that aims to provide improved experiences for customers.” 
CBA will invest a further $50 million, totalling approximately $100 million invested in PEXA to date. 
This will result in an increase in its ownership stake from 13.1% to 16%.
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