Lawyers will keep their virtual monopoly on conveyancing, while a tiny industry competing for a chunk of this work awaits the parliamentary ratification of long-promised reforms.
When the Lawyers and Conveyancers Bill fell below the political horizon last month, it dealt a blow to the future of landbroking - the term given to conveyancing by people who are not lawyers.
New entrants have been excluded since changes to the Land Transfer Act in 2002, making expansion dependent on the Bill's pass* says landbroker Lester Dempster.
The Bill, almost 10 years in the making, was in part motivated by a perceived need to free conveyancing from its lawyer monopoly and force competition to benefit the house-buying public.
The Bill has been sitting in parliamentary no-man's land but yesterday brought hope, as The Independent went to press, of a compromise between the Leader of the House, Michael Cullen, and National, whose MP Richard Worth is proposing an amendment reimposing constraints on non-lawyer conveyancing.
A meeting of the House's business committee was considering, as the paper went to press, a process to ensure the Bill was considered before this year's election.
It had earlier attracted so many proposed amendments that Cullen moved it down the priorities list, saying there would not be time to debate the amendments before the election.
Justice Minister Phil Goff says he expects the conveyancing sections of the Bill will command a majority in the House.
Dempster says seven landbrokers are doing conveyancing under licence and people contact him daily seeking information on practising in New Zealand.
But no new licences can be awarded and, as long as the Bill is deferred, the present practitioners lack regulation and a fidelity fund
Dempster, who owns and runs Conveyancers NZ, says it's 'appalling but not surprising' the Bill now faces many amendments, including one based on the lawyers' conveyancing monopoly.
The long-standing - and often bitter - opposition he has faced from lawyers while trying to expand his business suggests they want to retain the monopoly, Auckland-based Dempster says.
He recently set up an Oamaru office and advised the legal system. The branch then came to the notice of Land Information New Zealand.
Registrar-General of Land Robbie Muir says his office is investigating, after receiving a complaint about 'whether or not the activities were lawful in terms of the regulations.'
The New Zealand Law Society says it is resigned to the licensed conveyancer profession: 'The important thing is that it is regulated,' says president Chris Darlow.
'We don't like it but we will live with it. We don't believe there will be very many [licensed conveyancers] but, if there are, they will coexist with lawyers.'
However, last month, National's Richard Worth proposed all provisions relating to these conveyancing practitioners be removed from the Bill - a move effectively seeking to retain the lawyers' monopoly.
National had signalled dissatisfaction after last year's select committee hearings.
As its MPs put it back then, a small group of (non-lawyer) conveyancing practitioners 'clearly raises the justification for a highly prescriptive statutory regime and the impossibility of funding a realistic fidelity fund for such a limited occupational grouping.'
Worth says he's not 'fazed' that the indirect effect of his amendment is retention of the monopoly.
'The arguments against the monopoly were strong when there were `scale fees, but now that's gone,' he says. Conveyancing costs are 'incredibly competitive' and conveyancing is now sometimes a 'loss-leader.'
Dempster argues the 'mere introduction of a few of us [landbrokers] has already made a difference' to fees.
He says consumer choice is the issue.
The argument that the profession is too small to warrant legislation is circular, he says: without the reform, it cannot grow.
Darlow says the law society and Justice officials have worked together on technical adjustments, now appearing in amendments put by the government.
Amendments proposed include retaining the title of Queen's Counsel (Worth and NZ First's Dail Jones); removing ministerial approval of law society and conveyancers' society rulemaking (ACT's Stephen Franks); and a referendum among contributors to determine the fate of the existing fidelity fund (Murray Smith, United Future).
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