By Pinar Acay
We appreciate the opportunity to make a submission on the proposed update to the Land Registry fee regulations. While we acknowledge the importance of maintaining a modern, efficient, and secure land registry system, we do not support any increase to the current transfer registration fees. In our view, the proposed changes are not adequately justified and risk further burdening property owners and purchasers in Victoria.
Regulatory Impact Statement (RIS): Key concerns
The RIS contemplates an aggregate increase of approximately 44%, with many individual fees rising 50% to 200%, despite costs rising progressively over time. A sudden structural jump rather than staged indexation risks fee shock for users.
The justification for a 44% increase rests on forecast average costs of $223 million per year over ten years, not on demonstrated current shortfalls driven by inefficiency or service expansion. This shifts future risk onto users rather than Government.
It is acknowledged that the Torrens system reduces fraud, lowers transaction risk, underpins credit markets, and supports economic stability. These are systemic public benefits, yet the costs are increasingly shifted almost entirely to transactional users.
Although the RIS characterises equity impacts as “small,” many of the largest percentage increases apply to caveats, priority notices, name and address corrections, survivorship and trustee registrations. These are often non-discretionary and frequently used by individuals in distress (estate administration, bankruptcy), small businesses, and family property arrangements.
Fee increases of 200% to 269% for caveats and 144% for priority notices may deter rightful claims, increase litigation risk, and undermine the preventative function of these mechanisms. This directly contradicts the Government’s objective of avoiding increased non-compliance or inefficiency.
The consolidation of multiple fees into fewer categories is expressly acknowledged to mean that “individual fees may not strictly equal the cost of each individual service.” This means some users will materially overpay relative to service cost, without transparency or justification.
With 98% of transactions lodged electronically, and 93% automatically examined and registered, marginal processing costs have fallen, yet fees increase uniformly. The RIS does not demonstrate why efficiency gains are not being passed on to users.
Cost recovery is weighted at 50%, dwarfing equity (20%), efficiency (20%), and simplicity (10%). This makes Option 3 almost inevitable once “full cost recovery” is assumed as the dominant goal.
Doubling the ad valorem fee cap from $3,510 to $7,020 increases costs for commercial properties, large-scale developments, and institutional investments. The RIS acknowledges efficiency risks but dismisses them as “small” without modelling investment elasticity or interstate competitiveness.
Even if total revenue is unchanged, who pays matters. Concentrating higher fees on fewer, larger transactions can increase deal friction, discourage consolidation, and affect marginal investment decisions, especially when combined with other state land taxes.
For new housing supply, especially infill and subdivision projects, higher registry and subdivision fees add to planning costs, infrastructure charges, and compliance costs. The RIS treats each fee in isolation, understating cumulative impacts on housing delivery and affordability.
A ten-year regulation horizon with only a non-binding five-year review creates a risk of over-recovery, cost padding, and weak incentives for operational efficiency. A more balanced approach (phased, targeted, and reflective of automation gains) would better align with the Government’s own Pricing for Value principles.
Efficiencies achieved through e-conveyancing
A critical factor weighing against any fee increase is the widespread adoption of mandatory e-conveyancing, which has fundamentally transformed the way land transactions are processed.
E-conveyancing has delivered substantial efficiencies, including:
- Automated lodgement and validation of documents.
- Reduced manual processing and handling of paper instruments.
- Faster registration times and improved workflow efficiency.
- Lower administrative and storage costs.
- Reduced error rates and rework.
These changes have significantly reduced the marginal cost of processing transfer registrations compared to the former paper-based system. As transaction volumes increase, digital systems typically deliver economies of scale, meaning the cost per transaction should decrease over time rather than increase.
In this context, it is difficult to reconcile further fee increases with a system that is already more efficient, automated, and streamlined than ever before.
Competitiveness and consistency with national practice
Victoria currently has the second-highest transfer registration fees in Australia, exceeded only by Queensland. This is a significant consideration and, on its own, warrants caution against any further fee increases.
Many other Australian jurisdictions impose fixed transfer registration fees that are substantially lower than those payable in Victoria, including:
- Australian Capital Territory: $479.00
- New South Wales: $175.70
- Northern Territory: $176.00
- Tasmania: $250.21
These jurisdictions demonstrate that essential land registry services can be delivered effectively at far lower and more predictable cost, without escalating fees based on property value.
Increasing fees in Victoria would further entrench the State as one of the most expensive jurisdictions in Australia in which to register a property transfer. This places Victoria at a competitive disadvantage and makes property transactions more costly and less predictable than in other states and territories.
The administrative task of registering a transfer is broadly similar regardless of the value of the property. An ad valorem fee structure — particularly one that is increased — risks charging higher fees without any corresponding increase in service complexity or cost.
Without transparent, detailed evidence demonstrating that current fees are insufficient to recover costs, or that past fee revenue has been fully and efficiently applied to service improvements, further increases cannot be justified on a cost-recovery basis.
Impact on affordability and equity
Property transaction costs in Victoria are already high due to stamp duty, professional fees, holding costs and taxes. Increasing transfer registration fees adds to this burden and disproportionately affects:
- First-home buyers entering an expensive housing market.
- Families upgrading homes within metropolitan or regional Victoria.
- Older Victorians downsizing but still subject to value-based fees.
While higher-value properties attract higher fees, median property prices in Victoria mean that ordinary homeowners are routinely exposed to some of the highest transfer registration fees in the country. This raises significant equity concerns.
Additional cost burdens on property owners and buyers
Even though some fees are being restructured, any increase in the overall fee levels means purchasers and sellers pay more to complete property transactions. This raises the upfront cost of buying or selling land — a cost that is often directly passed on to buyers in an already expensive property market.
Higher transaction fees increase the overall cost of moving house or investing in property, which can disproportionately affect first-home buyers and low-income households who already struggle with high housing costs.
The Government’s justification for higher fees is to ensure fee levels cover the cost of delivering modern digital services and keep services “fit-for-purpose and world-leading.” However, it is unclear whether existing fee revenue has been fully used to improve services rather than absorbed into broader department budgets over the past 20 years. Without specific evidence showing measurable service improvements tied to past fee revenue, increased fees risk merely generating revenue rather than enhancing user outcomes.
Fee increases are not justified unless there is transparent proof of improved performance (e.g. shorter lodgement times, fewer errors, better accessibility), and that existing technology investments should be maximised before raising costs.
Disproportionate impact on small transactions and ordinary homeowners
Although the reform proposes some relief for lower-value transactions (e.g. lower rates for property under $1 million), the fee cap for higher-value properties is being increased, meaning wealthy property buyers will pay significantly more.
While relief for lower-value properties is positive in theory, increases at the upper end still raise costs for a large segment of the market, including middle-income households upgrading within the same region or investing in modestly higher-priced properties.
Even small per-transaction increases multiplied across thousands of transactions can represent a large relative increase in cost burden for ordinary home buyers and investors.
“Fees were unchanged for 20 years” — not a compelling justification alone
The Government states this is the first overall increase in 20 years and uses that as part of its rationale. However, longevity of unchanged fees is not in itself a strong justification for an increase — costs could have been kept in check through internal efficiency efforts, and simple inflation indexing may have sufficed.
There should be transparent analysis showing that costs have truly outstripped revenue and that alternatives (e.g. internal efficiency or technology upgrades funded elsewhere) are exhausted.
Essential nature of land registry services
Land registry services are not discretionary. They are fundamental to property ownership, mortgages, subdivisions, conveyancing, financing, and development. As such, fees for these services should remain tightly aligned to the cost of delivery.
Unlike optional service fees, registry fees are integral to legal property rights. Raising them effectively increases a tax on property transactions rather than a user fee for chosen services.
The increases appear to be aimed at raising additional general revenue, rather than covering costs — especially through restructuring the ad valorem charges tied to property value. Government should not leverage essential legal services purely as revenue sources without transparent justification.
Predictability for planning and investment
Businesses and individuals make planning decisions based partly on known fees and costs. Significant changes to fee structures can:
- Disrupt budgeting for developers, conveyancers, and property professionals.
- Reduce confidence in the cost environment for property investment and development.
Regular, predictable indexing tied to inflation would be less disruptive than broad structural shifts.
Conclusion
We submit that there is no compelling case to increase current transfer registration fees or materially uplift associated dealing fees. It is submitted that the Government should instead pursue fee restraint and modest staged indexation where genuinely required, greater transparency around cost recovery and allocation of historic fee revenue, fee settings that reflect automation and e‑conveyancing efficiencies, and alignment with national best practice before imposing additional costs on Victorian property owners.
Yours faithfully,
EALES & MACKENZIE
