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Buyers & sellers risk millions in real estate form uncertainty

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: 26 August 2009
CONTACT: Peter Carter on 07 3210 3444

A Brisbane law firm claims that buyers and sellers of Queensland real estate face expenses of millions of dollars due to uncertainties arising from mandatory real estate forms issued by the Office of Fair Trading.

"New versions of the Property Agents and Motor Dealers Act (PAMDA) forms that become compulsory from 1 October have been produced mainly because the department responsible for Fair Trading now has a different name," according to Peter Carter of Brisbane law firm Carter Capner Law. " The other changes, including a new ‘font’ do not appear to be of any legal significance," he says.

For some forms, the new release is version 6 and for most others it is version 5.

"The implementation costs of each version probably exceed $3 million across the real estate industry and a similar figure for the legal industry. That does not include the cost to the Department or the costs of inadvertent non-compliance that results in damages claims," says Carter.

"When designing the latest version of compulsory PAMDA forms - used in conjunction with residential real estate contracts and agent appointments - the bureaucrats also ignored many situations that commonly arise in practice."

Forced to ‘work around’ the design faults on a daily basis, agents and software providers produce forms which are potentially non-compliant because they are not identical to the official form.

"This puts sale contracts at a very real risk of cancellation or dispute which often results in expensive litigation," explains Carter. "Even trivial discrepancies can have these consequences."

The new versions are also incompatible with software used by most real estate agencies for efficiency.

Carter Capner Law has created an online petition to the Minister and has joined with industry heavyweights Alan Liddle of ADL software and Kevin Turner of 4BC’s Real Estate Talk in mounting a campaign for urgent reform.

The Fair Trading minister, Peter Lawlor cancelled his scheduled on-air appearance to discuss the issue with Kevin Turner last Saturday. The Fair Trading investigator who appeared in his place conceded that the department ‘may have gone overboard’ with the content of the forms.

"The losses to sellers from PAMDA related lawsuits so far would exceed many millions of dollars and these losses will continue unless the Minister acts now to prevent them," according to Carter.

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