PAYMENT OF FEES - OPTION TO SELECT FEE PAYING ACCOUNT AS SOURCE ACCOUNT

[JHLegal]

Our firm is very inconvenienced having to get funds transferred to trust to pay PEXA and registrations fees in the following examples of VIC transactions:

1. stand alone discharge of mortgage - the only fee is the registration fee.  which usually we would pay from our office/general account and bill to client as a disbursement (much like when we register a caveat).  However now we can only pay from source funds which is our trust account which means that the client has to (on VERY short notice) transfer payment to our trust account, wait for them to clear, which delays settlement, etc.  A simpler option MUST be found.

2.  stand alone transfer of land from husband to wife (or from wife to husband, or from wife to husband and wife etc. etc.)

3. transmissions and survivorships where mortgage on title.

[ChrystalCann]

This has been a problem with our firm as well. In most cases we have had to transfer funds from our office account to the trust account as some transactions simply cannot wait for a client to transfer funds to us.

[Ames]

Hi @ChrystalCann and @JHLegal

Unfortunately when you have a financial settlement workspace, source funds must come from a registered source account. All transfer workspaces must be a financial settlement workspace. And only trust accounts can be a registered source account.

PEXA is unable to register a Subscriber’s office account as a source account for the purposes of contributing funds to settlement. Where the Workspace involves Financial Settlement, PEXA will send a message to the bank that holds the source account and requests it to move funds from that registered source account to the bank's account that supports a PEXA settlement. A registered source account must be an account that fits the integration model and the contractual framework for Subscribers (including the settlement terms and conditions). Therefore, only trust accounts held at Financial Institutions that are integrated with PEXA for this purpose and the PEXA Source Account can be used to contribute source funds.

For more information, please refer to our help material on PEXA fees and lodgement fees. 

 Ames.

[alawson]

I agree that it is a big inconvenience  - especially for simple lodgements  which we would normally pay fees from a general /office account. It opens a whole new new raft of responsibilities - providing trust statements to clients etc.... I hope that this is put under reviewand the contractual framework for Subscribers gets an overhaul (its not a true 'settlement' - its a mere lodgement!) .

[Damonallens]

Hi PEXA, Can we please really query this. We have had different answers from PEXA.

In a discharge of mortgage involving "Financial Settlement" when we fill in the Financial Settlement Statement there is PEXA and lodgement fees to pay and we will need to fill in a source for those. The dropdown box only gives us the option of selecting Trust Account.  For discharges the fees are not significant so we don't typically get funds in trust upfront.

Our questions:

1. Can we use our linked office account instead of trust account as the source funds to pay PEXA and lodgement fees?  Or is Trust Account the only choice we have? This is where we have been told different answers. The above answer from PEXA says "no" but we have been told yes from other PEXA contacts
2. If we can use our linked office account can we put a $ limit on how much can be used. Is there ability to impose a daily limit?

[stevenmorgan]

I'll add to the call for change here.  We had to withdraw a Priority Notice at settlement (due to our error), so the fees for that were a line item fee in destinations funds.  For us to put those funds in from trust was technically a breach of our trust account obligations as the trust funds we held were not for that purpose.   There has to be a better way.

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