When a Queensland conveyance goes wrong: complaints and claims

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Kooky

Builder of Shaka, the payment router that pays every agent their commission on closing date.

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Most Queensland conveyances end the way they are meant to: the money moves, the title changes hands and the file is closed without anyone thinking about it again. Now and then one does not. A date passes without the notice that should have gone out. A search that would have shown a problem was never ordered. Calls go unreturned in the week before settlement, or the final bill is well above the figure the client remembers being told.

When that happens, a buyer or seller usually reaches for one word, "complaint", and expects one office to deal with all of it. Queensland does not work that way. There are several routes, each run by a different body, each built to answer a different question, and each with its own limit on time and on money. A person who picks the wrong one can wait a long time for an answer that was never going to be the one they needed.

This guide sets out those routes: the firm itself, the Legal Services Commission, a costs assessment under the Legal Profession Act 2007, a claim for negligence in a court or tribunal, and the part played by the Queensland Law Society. It describes what each can and cannot do. It is general information, and the right course in any one matter depends on its facts.

Legal Services Commission annual report 2024-25 and compensation orders page; Legal Profession Act 2007, section 335.

Four different problems, four different questions

The first step is to say exactly what went wrong, because the answer decides where the matter belongs.

A service problem is about how the work was done: slow replies, a brusque manner, a delay nobody explained. A conduct problem is more serious: work that fell below the standard of competence and diligence the public is entitled to expect, or behaviour that raises a question about honesty or ethics. A costs problem is about the bill: its size, what it includes, whether it matches what was disclosed at the start. A loss is money the client is out of pocket because of an error, such as a forfeited deposit, a penalty for late settlement or a defect in the property that a search would have revealed.

One file can raise all four at once, and each strand goes to a different place, as the table shows.

The routes are not exclusive. A client may raise the matter with the firm, lodge a complaint and have a bill assessed, all on the same file. What matters is that each request is sent to the body that has the power to grant it.

Raising it with the firm comes first

The Queensland Government's page on complaints about lawyers puts it plainly: before making a complaint, a client should talk to the lawyer and try to resolve the issue directly. The same page describes the Legal Services Commission as the next step only if the client is still unhappy after that.

There are practical reasons for the order. While a conveyance is still running, the firm is the only party able to fix the problem in time: a request for an extension, a corrected adjustment figure or an urgent search can be made in an afternoon, and no outside body works at that speed. Some apparent errors also turn out to be gaps in explanation, such as a date that looked missed but had been extended by agreement between the two sides.

A concern is most likely to be answered when it is put in writing, to a principal of the firm rather than only to the clerk handling the file, and when it says three things: what happened, how it affected the client, and what outcome the client is asking for. Those are the same three things the Commission asks for when it receives an enquiry, so a letter written this way does double duty if the matter goes further.

One caution belongs here. Raising a concern does not pause the conveyance. Contract dates keep running while the firm and its client talk, and ending the retainer in the middle of a transaction has consequences of its own for the file and the fees, which is a separate subject.

What the Legal Services Commission deals with

The Legal Services Commission is an independent statutory body set up under the Legal Profession Act 2007. The Queensland Government describes it as the only body in the State that deals with complaints about lawyers, law practice employees and people who act as lawyers without being qualified. That middle group matters in conveyancing, where much of the day-to-day work on a file is done by clerks and paralegals under a solicitor's supervision: the Commission's own list of who may be complained about includes law practice employees who are not lawyers.

According to the Commission, anyone may complain: current and former clients, members of the public and other practitioners.

The Commission's task is to judge conduct against two standards written into the Act. Unsatisfactory professional conduct is conduct that falls short of the standard of competence and diligence a member of the public is entitled to expect. Professional misconduct includes a substantial or consistent failure to reach or keep that standard, and conduct that would justify a finding that the practitioner is not a fit and proper person to practise.

Equally important is what the Commission is not. It is not a court that awards damages, it does not act for the complainant, and by its own account it does not have the power to resolve disputes about costs. A complaint tests the lawyer's conduct. It does not, by itself, put the client back where they would have been.

Consumer dispute or conduct complaint

The Commission sorts what it receives into two streams, and the label decides what can follow.

A consumer dispute, in the Commission's definition, is a complaint about conduct that does not involve unsatisfactory professional conduct or professional misconduct. The examples it gives will be familiar to anyone who has been through a tense settlement: a lack of communication, rudeness, delay, a disagreement over costs, or a lien, which is a practitioner's right to hold a client's documents until fees and outlays are paid.

A conduct complaint is one where the facts, if proven, could amount to one of the two statutory standards. An isolated slip in an otherwise careful file will not always reach that level; a pattern of neglect, or a single failure with serious consequences, may. Where the line falls depends on the case, and it is the Commission that draws it, not the complainant.

The distinction has a direct consequence. Disciplinary proceedings, and the compensation orders described further on, depend on a finding about conduct. A matter classed as a consumer dispute cannot end in either. That is not a judgement that the client's frustration was unreasonable. It means the remedy, if there is one, lies in an explanation, an agreement with the firm, a costs assessment or a civil claim.

Costs sit across the line. The Commission says it cannot resolve a costs dispute, but that the Commissioner may still look at whether a practice met its duty under the Act to give proper costs disclosure. The size of a bill is a matter for assessment; a failure to disclose is a matter of conduct.

From enquiry to decision

A complaint does not start as a complaint. The Queensland Government's guidance describes a first step called an enquiry, made online, by post or by email, setting out who the client is, which lawyer or firm is involved and what happened. Copies of documents may be attached; originals should be kept.

Where a discipline application is made, it goes to one of two disciplinary bodies: the Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal, known as QCAT, or the Legal Practice Committee. From that point the Commissioner is the party bringing the case. The complainant is a witness, not a litigant.

Time matters at the front door. The Commission's annual report for 2024-25 lists, among its grounds for closing a complaint early, section 430 of the Act, which applies where the conduct happened more than three years before the complaint. Four complaints were closed on that ground during the year. The Act leaves the Commissioner some room to accept an older complaint, and whether that room is used depends on the circumstances, so a client who is still inside three years has no reason to test it.

A person who disagrees with a decision may write to the Commission with reasons and ask it to look again. The annual report counts 46 such requests in 2024-25; of the 44 resolved, the original decision was affirmed in 30, 11 requests were not accepted and three were withdrawn.

What the Commission's figures show

The annual report for 2024-25 gives a sense of scale. The Commission received 4,123 enquiries in the year, up from 2,428 the year before, an increase of about 70 per cent. It received 873 complaints and finalised 661.

Of those 661, 509 were closed at the assessment stage by what the Act calls summary dismissal, and 152 were investigated and then finalised. By far the most common reason for a summary dismissal, in 398 cases, was that the complaint did not disclose unsatisfactory professional conduct or professional misconduct. That figure is the consumer dispute line at work: most people who write to the Commission have a real grievance, and most of those grievances are about service or cost, not about conduct the disciplinary system exists to punish.

Conveyancing is a visible part of the workload without dominating it. Among the 152 investigated complaints, the report counts 21 under conveyancing and a further nine under property law.

These counts need context the report does not supply: it does not say how many conveyances were carried out in Queensland in the same year, so the figures cannot be turned into a rate.

The report also describes what the complaints were about. Across all areas of law, quality of service was the most common subject of an investigated complaint, with 39, followed by costs with 19; communication accounted for 11.

On outcomes, the same table of 152 shows 70 complaints dismissed because there was no reasonable likelihood of a disciplinary finding and 36 dismissed because proceedings were not in the public interest. Thirty-one were referred to QCAT and two to the Legal Practice Committee. The remainder ended with no further action, a matter started in the Magistrates Court or a withdrawal.

The report is candid about speed. It says 95 per cent of enquiries were answered within 14 days. A complaint that goes to investigation is another matter: the average time to finalise one in 2024-25 was 695 days, and about 40 per cent of the complaint matters finalised were files more than two years old. The Commission has also been replacing its case management system, and its website has carried a notice that services may be affected while that work is done.

A complaint tests a lawyer's conduct and a claim tests a client's loss. The same file can need both, and neither does the other's work.

Compensation orders and the $7,500 cap

The disciplinary route does have one way of returning something to the client. Under section 464 of the Legal Profession Act 2007, a compensation order can take four forms: an order that the law practice may not recover, or must repay, some or all of what it charged for stated legal services; an order that it release a lien over stated documents; an order that it carry out stated work free or for a stated fee; and an order that it pay the complainant compensation for pecuniary loss suffered because of the conduct.

The Commission's page on compensation orders explains the limits. An order is made by a disciplinary body, QCAT or the Legal Practice Committee, and only where that body finds the conduct was unsatisfactory professional conduct or professional misconduct. It is payable by the law practice, not by the individual lawyer. And the maximum order for financial loss, the Commission states, is $7,500, a figure set by the Act.

Within that ceiling the Commission gives examples close to conveyancing: fees for poorly done work that cannot be recovered or must be refunded, the cost of a second firm engaged to fix the problem, and a $5,000 deposit lost on a failed property sale. It is equally clear about what falls outside. An order cannot compensate for distress, damage to reputation or psychological injury, and it is not designed to deliver the result the client originally wanted from the transaction.

A claim for an order takes some effort. The Commission says the complainant may need to swear an affidavit and give evidence before the disciplinary body. One of its legal officers may help prepare the affidavit, but the Commissioner does not act for the complainant. If the practice does not comply, the order can be filed in the appropriate court and enforced there, and the Commission does not take part in that recovery.

The compensation order therefore suits a modest, documented loss tied to conduct serious enough to be disciplined. For a larger loss, or an error that was careless without being a disciplinary matter, it is not the main route.

Disputing the bill: costs assessment

A bill that seems too high is the one grievance with a procedure of its own. The Legal Profession Act 2007 gives a client the right to have legal costs assessed by an independent costs assessor, and section 335 sets out who may apply and when.

The right belongs to the client and also to a third party payer, meaning someone other than the client who is liable for the costs or has paid them. In a family purchase where a parent pays the legal bill, that can matter. The application can cover all of the costs or only part, and it can be made even if the bill has already been paid in full, or if no bill was ever issued.

The time limit is the point most often missed. Under section 335, the application must be made within 12 months after the bill was given or the request for payment was made, or, if neither happened, within 12 months after the costs were paid. A late application is not automatically shut out: the section allows it to be dealt with after the reasons for the delay have been considered. That allowance does not extend to what the Act calls a sophisticated client, a term it defines separately.

The application is made in the way the Uniform Civil Procedure Rules provide, and the assessment is carried out by a costs assessor working under those rules. The assessor's job is narrow: to decide what amount is properly payable for the work. An assessment does not rule on whether the lawyer was negligent, and it does not award compensation for anything beyond the costs themselves.

Before any application, the usual first move is to read the bill line by line against the costs agreement and the disclosure given at the start of the matter. How those documents are meant to work is covered in the magazine's guide to conveyancing fees.

A negligence claim: the courts and the tribunal

When a mistake has cost real money, the route designed for it is a civil claim against the law practice: for breach of the retainer, which is a contract, or for negligence, or both. This is the only route with no ceiling of its own on what can be recovered, and the only one whose purpose is to restore the client's financial position.

It also asks the most of the person bringing it. The client must show what a reasonably competent conveyancing practitioner would have done, that the firm did not do it, and that the loss followed from that failure and not from something else, such as a falling market, the other party's default or the client's own instructions. A missed date that caused no loss supports a complaint but not a damages claim. A loss with several causes may be recoverable only in part. These are questions of evidence, and they are why this kind of dispute is usually run with independent legal advice from a firm unconnected with the first.

Which body hears a claim depends mainly on the amount. Queensland's civil system is tiered: QCAT deals with lower-value disputes under its minor civil dispute jurisdiction, and the Magistrates, District and Supreme Courts take progressively larger claims. QCAT's page on consumer and trader disputes, updated on 4 August 2026, puts its limit at $25,000 excluding interest for a dispute arising from a contract for services between a consumer and a trader, and says larger claims go to the Magistrates Court, which hears up to $150,000. Whether a particular claim against a law practice fits the tribunal's definition is a question for advice on that claim. The limits are set by legislation and should be checked when a claim is being considered, because the right forum affects both cost and procedure.

Time limits apply here as well. QCAT's page says proceedings must generally be started within six years. The Limitation of Actions Act 1974 sets the periods within which actions in contract and in tort must be started in Queensland. When the period begins can differ between the two kinds of action, and working out the last safe date for a particular file is a matter for advice on that file, not a rule of thumb.

The insurance that stands behind a law practice when such a claim is made has its own guide in this magazine.

Where the Queensland Law Society fits

Many clients assume the Queensland Law Society is where a complaint about a solicitor is sent. It is not. Since the Legal Profession Act 2007, complaints go to the Legal Services Commission, which describes itself as regulating the profession jointly with the Law Society for solicitors and the Bar Association of Queensland for barristers.

The Law Society's share of that work, as the Commission sets it out, is to issue and regulate practising certificates, to make the profession's conduct rules and to audit solicitors' trust accounts along with other aspects of practice. For a client this has two uses. The Society's records show whether a person holds a current practising certificate, which is the starting point for any concern about who was handling a file. And where the worry is about trust money, such as a deposit or settlement funds that cannot be accounted for, the Society's trust account role is directly engaged.

Trust money has its own safety net. The Act provides for a fidelity fund, administered by the Law Society, for losses caused by a default involving trust money or property. It is separate from every route described above and is covered in the magazine's guide to solicitors' trust accounts.

Kooky, from Shaka

Kooky edits Queensland Estate and builds Shaka, the payment router he made for Queensland property professionals. One payment comes in, and every agent, agency and party in the deal receives their signed share on closing date.

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