# ARNECC briefs industry on tighter rules for settlement platforms and firms
Registrars briefed the property industry on 17 and 19 June on draft version 8 of the national e-conveyancing rules, covering cyber security, insurance and reporting.
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The council of land registrars that regulates electronic conveyancing held two briefings for the property industry last week on the largest rewrite of its rulebook in several years. The Australian Registrars' National Electronic Conveyancing Council, known as ARNECC, briefed stakeholders on 17 June 2026 on draft version 8 of the rules for the platforms on which settlements take place, and on 19 June on draft version 8 of the rules for the law firms, conveyancers and lenders that use them.
Both drafts were released for consultation on 26 May, and ARNECC's media release sets 5pm on 17 July 2026 as the deadline for feedback. The proposals do not change what happens on a settlement afternoon. They change what stands behind it: how the platforms prove their security, how much insurance sits behind a transaction and what a practice must do to keep its access. In Queensland, where Titles Queensland says electronic conveyancing has been mandatory for most transactions since 20 February 2023, those rules reach nearly every home sale.
17 July2026, deadline for feedback on both drafts
$20mminimum professional indemnity cover for a platform
$2mcover proposed for subscribers, up from $1.5m
ARNECC stakeholder briefings of 17 and 19 June 2026 and media release of 26 May 2026.
## Two rulebooks, one system
Electronic conveyancing in Australia runs on two sets of rules. The Model Operating Requirements bind the electronic lodgment network operators, the companies that run the online systems through which documents are signed, money is paid and transfers are lodged with a land registry. Titles Queensland lists two approved operators in the state, PEXA and Sympli. The Model Participation Rules bind the subscribers: the solicitors, conveyancers and financial institutions that sign on behalf of buyers, sellers and lenders.
ARNECC writes the model versions. Each state and territory registrar then applies them in its own jurisdiction. The New South Wales Registrar General's interoperability progress report, published this month, gives an example of the process: it records that version 7.2 of that state's operating requirements takes effect on 29 June 2026.
Version 8 is the next step after that. ARNECC's release of 26 May described the themes as stronger security standards, updated data retention, higher insurance and tighter client authorisation, and said no further extension of time for feedback would be granted except in extraordinary circumstances.
## What platform operators would have to do
The briefing of 17 June set out the changes for operators under three headings: cyber security, insurance and compliance reporting.
On security, an operator would have to hold certification against ISO 27001, the international standard for information security management, supported by mandatory internal audits. Its security system would have to cover incident response playbooks and protection against phishing. Business continuity and disaster recovery plans would be tested every year. An operator would also carry out sampled assessments of whether its subscribers are complying with their own obligations, and would take part in table-top exercises simulating a cyber incident with registrars and other operators when asked. Staff with access would need to be of good character and to have had security training.
On insurance, the briefing proposes professional indemnity cover of not less than $20 million in aggregate and not less than $5 million for each claim, public and product liability cover of $20 million, and a new requirement for cyber security insurance that covers incident response, business interruption and data recovery. An operator would have to tell the registrar of material changes to its cover, and keep insurance in place for six years after its approval ends.
On reporting, operators would face annual reviews by independent experts of their financial, technical and organisational resources. Where an independent certification includes what the draft calls essential recommendations, the operator would report monthly until they are implemented. Operators would give registrars their register of subscribers, including those whose registration has been restricted, suspended or terminated.
Two further changes are housekeeping with consequences. Operators could destroy or de-identify personal data after 15 years, or after any other relevant statutory period, without first seeking a registrar's approval, though they would have to give written notice and would keep land information permanently. And an operator could not outsource systems that handle land information without a registrar's approval.
## What firms and conveyancers would have to do
The briefing of 19 June covered the subscriber side. For a small conveyancing practice, these are the proposals most likely to be felt.
Draft version 8: main changes for subscribersModel Participation Rules, consultation draft
Area
Proposed rule
Access security
Multi-factor authentication for all remote access to the subscriber's systems, all administrator accounts and email
Users
Police background checks for all users
Recognised standards
Compliance may be shown by certification against the Essential Eight, ISO 27001 or SMB 1001
Professional indemnity
Minimum cover rises from $1,500,000 to $2,000,000
Fidelity cover
Minimum cover rises from $1,500,000 to $2,000,000
New cover
Cyber security insurance; cover for dishonest, fraudulent, criminal or malicious acts by principals, officers or employees
ARNECC stakeholder briefing, Model Participation Rules version 8, 19 June 2026. The insurance increases carry a transitional date of 1 July 2027.
The increase in both insurance minimums is $500,000, or one third. ARNECC's briefing gives 1 July 2027 as the date from which the higher insurance requirements would apply, which leaves a renewal cycle for practices to adjust.
Several rules about conduct also change. The draft removes an exception that has allowed some documents to be lodged without a client authorisation, the signed form by which a client permits a representative to act in an electronic transaction: caveators and applicants for priority notices would now need one. The requirement to confirm a person's right to deal with the land would extend to subscribers that represent themselves. A registrar could partially suspend a subscriber instead of suspending it outright. Subscribers would have to notify the registrar if they become aware that they have given false or misleading information. And the draft confirms that conveyancers and lawyers employed in-house are not identity agents for the purpose of the rules.
## Why the rulebook is being tightened now
The timing follows a decision taken in March. For several years the main reform in this field was interoperability: a plan to let a subscriber on one platform complete a transaction with a subscriber on another, so that the two approved operators could compete for the same settlements.
On 24 March 2026 a forum of state and territory ministers endorsed ARNECC's recommendation not to proceed. The ministers' statement, which lists Queensland's Minister Dale Last among those attending, said that without Commonwealth Government support ARNECC would not go ahead with the interoperability program or with alternative models of competition. It cited the time, cost and complexity of implementation, the absence of incentives for banks to take part and the lack of state power to require them to. South Australia did not endorse the decisions because its government had only just been formed. ARNECC's own statement of 31 March said it would instead strengthen the existing national regulatory framework, with closer oversight of operators and stronger enforcement.
The New South Wales Registrar General's report this month fills in the background. It says a functional requirements review found a viable pathway to interoperability, but one that may not deliver all the outcomes first envisaged for competition and innovation. A cost-benefit analysis put the estimated net benefit of the main model at $16 million, with $11 million for a variant built on practitioner choice and $8 million for regulating a single provider. The Registrar General wrote that the report would be the last of its kind to the state's parliament unless the reform resumes.
With competition between platforms set aside for now, regulation is carrying more of the load. Version 8 is the first full draft to appear since that decision.
## What it means for a Queensland settlement
Titles Queensland's mandate covers nine instruments, among them the transfer, the release of mortgage and the national mortgage form. A buyer or seller in an ordinary sale therefore depends on a platform and on two or more subscribers whether they know it or not.
For those clients, the visible effects of the draft would be small. A person lodging a caveat or priority notice through a solicitor would be asked to sign a client authorisation where one was not needed before. Behind the scenes, the practice acting for them would be logging in with multi-factor authentication, its staff would have been through police checks, and its insurance would be larger.
The effect on cost is not addressed in the briefings. Higher insurance minimums, certification and background checks are expenses for operators and for practices, and the documents released so far do not estimate them. The fees the platforms charge are being examined separately: the Registrar General's report notes that the New South Wales pricing regulator, IPART, is reviewing operators' service fees, with outcomes expected to inform future policy.
Status
These are consultation drafts, not rules in force
Nothing in version 8 applies yet. ARNECC is taking feedback until 17 July 2026, and the briefings give no commencement date for the rules as a whole. The one date stated is 1 July 2027, for the higher insurance minimums proposed for subscribers.
## What comes next
Feedback on both drafts closes at 5pm Australian Eastern Standard Time on 17 July 2026. ARNECC will then settle the final model versions, and each registrar will decide when to apply them. Neither briefing names a commencement date, apart from the insurance transition.
Two other processes run alongside. The Registrar General's report says ARNECC has asked for Commonwealth engagement on bank participation and the regulation of financial settlement, the missing piece identified in March. And the review of platform fees is under way, with its findings still to be published.
Practices in Queensland have until the middle of July to compare the subscriber draft with their own systems and insurance schedule and to say what they think of it. For everyone else, the drafts are a reminder that the unseen machinery of settlement has rules of its own, and that those rules are about to become more demanding.