Strata Rules and Digital Signatures: the future is now

The sale of a residential complex in Sydney’s Macquarie Park has landed as the first of its kind in more ways than one.

In April 2017, Melbourne based developer VIMG secured 40 of the 48 strata units within the complex at 159-162 Epping Road. The owners of the remaining eight units have been forced to sell, in what was one of the first forced sales under NSW’s new strata rules.

Prior to the new strata laws, owners could not sell a strata title building unless all owners agreed to it. Now there only needs to be a minimum agreement encompassing 75% of the total number of lots.

"For apartment owners in older style blocks that can be expensive to maintain, the new legislation presents an excellent opportunity to capitalise on re-development opportunities." Nathan Weinberger, Senior Associate at Colin Biggers & Paisley.

As well as being one of the first sales of this nature, the Macquarie Park complex is also one of the first collective sales of apartments that will be done entirely electronically. Legal practice Colin Biggers & Paisely have developed the CBP Exchange, which serves as an online property contract exchange platform.

CBP Exchange uses DocuSign’s digital transaction management technology to allow contracts to be signed electronically while maintaining proper security. This not only results in quality control, less cost and a speedy turn-around time, but the signing can be performed anywhere in the world with an internet connection.

In the case of Macquarie Park, the contracts of 40 apartments (with a total value of $75 million) were signed using iPads and mobile phones in the space of one day.

"This is the first major "crypto property transaction" in Australia for big money under the new collective sale laws, and it was done entirely electronically, privately and securely using CBP Exchange and PEXA, without paper contracts, certificates of title, bank cheques or a real live person in sight,” says Brendan Maier Colin Biggers & Paisley Partner,

“Our platform, CBP Exchange is unique in the legal market. In a matter of hours, lots of people can sign contracts in different places all over the world - on any internet connected device. We're saving our clients time and money, and they are getting much better outcomes.”

Since introduced, Colin Biggers & Paisley have sold over 3,000 properties using the technology.