Welcome to the Customer Information Bulletin for September 2025.
This month we will cover:
- Changes expedite eligibility;
- Right to Deal Requirements for Electronic Conveyancing;
- Changes to Plan examination priority standards;
- 2024 Strata Returns Results are now available; and
- Landgate to upgrade credit card payment gateway.
Upcoming changes to expedite eligibility – Effective 9 September 2025
Effective Tuesday, 09 September 2025, there will be changes to the eligibility criteria to expedite documents and plans.
These updates are designed to improve our service by ensuring expedite requests are assessed and managed more efficiently and fairly. The revised requirements will allow us to deliver quicker outcomes for genuinely urgent cases, while making sure all requests are prioritised appropriately.
The key changes to the expedite criteria are outlined below:
· Expedite requests based on a pending settlement will only be approved if settlement is scheduled within fourteen (14) days of the request date.
· Expedite Requests for settlements occurring outside the 14-day timeframe will be automatically declined.
· Where an expedite request specifies a required completion date, the request will be declined if the document is expected to be processed by the date under existing turnaround times.
· Applicants dealing with a settlement date that has already occurred must present either a new settlement date scheduled within the next 14 days or demonstrate extenuating circumstances, such as financial hardship.
· Applications for expediting documents with a published turnaround time of 10 days or less will not be eligible for expedite processing.
Please note there are no changes to expedite under the grounds of financial hardship.
For further information on the new requirements to expedite your document or plan please refer to LOD-05 Request to Expedite the Processing of Plans and Documents.
Right to Deal Requirements for Electronic Conveyancing
The Registrar of Titles has observed that on some occasions:
· Verification of Identity (VOI) is being confused with Right to Deal (RTD); and
· Subscribers may not be sighting and/or retaining evidence in support of RTD for their Conveyancing Transaction(s).
Right to Deal
RTD is the entitlement of a Person to be a particular Party to a specific Conveyancing Transaction.
Evidence to support RTD must be obtained for each individual Conveyancing Transaction, and more extensive checks and enquiries should be made where doubt arises, or should reasonably have arisen, in relation to a Person’s RTD.
It is important to note that whilst RTD is linked to VOI, and it is prudent to conduct the processes simultaneously, VOI alone does not satisfy verification of RTD.
The WA Participation Rules (WAPR) requires a Subscriber to take reasonable steps to verify the RTD of their Client, and/or the mortgagor for a mortgage.
Verifying RTD requires the Subscriber to sight and retain copies of supporting evidence that includes the name of the Person whose RTD is being verified and the property or transaction details. The supporting evidence should allow the Subscriber to link the registered interest holder or transacting Party to the land being dealt on.
Failure to take reasonable steps to establish RTD for a Client in a Conveyancing Transaction is a material breach of the WAPR and may result in Suspension or Termination from the Electronic Lodgment Network.
More information
For further information and guidance on RTD, including examples of evidence that a Subscriber may choose to rely on, please refer to the Model Participation Rules Guidance Note 4 – Right to Deal available on the ARNECC website and the Subscriber compliance page on the Landgate website.
New changes to plan examination priority standards
Landgate is revising its plan examination priority to better align with the actual date of plan lodgement.
Effective 2 September 2025, all plans lodged with Landgate will be placed in the relevant priority queue based on the following priority and lodgement date order.
As part of the revised process, the previous medium and low priority plans are combined into one category (Medium priority) with an emphasis being placed on plan lodgement date rather than plan type.
Plans already within the current workflow will also be re-prioritised according to the below criteria and examined in priority and lodgement date order.
High Priority
A plan that has an application for new titles document lodged with Landgate, or a plan that has been created through the surveyor portal.
· 'Readiness to Proceed' (for any plan type): A plan is given high priority on lodgement of an application for new titles document, and the document has been added in NLR-Plan through the Readiness to Proceed process. (see section 2 of SPP-17: Readiness to Proceed for the procedure).
· Portal plans (of any type).
· Conversion to survey-strata plans.
· Strata plan mergers.
Medium Priority
Plans that require planning approval for which consent to release the plan has been received by Landgate, and plans that are exempt from planning approval.
· Strata plans and community title (building) plans.
· CAD generated survey-strata plans and community title (land) plans.
· CAD generated Crown and Freehold deposited plans.
Low Priority
Plans that require planning approval, but no consent to release them to WAPC has been received by Landgate.
Request to Expedite the Processing of Plans
Should a plan require urgent processing, please refer to the Request to Expedite the Processing of Plans and Documents Policy, which outlines the process and evidence required to request and expedited procedure.
‘Requests to expedite’ must be emailed to Landgate via plans.consultants@landgate.wa.gov.au and must be accompanied with the relevant evidence for requests to be considered and approved.
Snapshot of WA’s strata industry – 2024 results now available
The findings from the 2024 Strata Manager Annual Return are now available. They provide an overview and analysis of data submitted by industry participants for the 2024 reporting period (1 January to 31 December 2024).
A summary infographic and detailed presentation are available on the Strata Manager Annual Returns page of the Landgate website.
Thank you to WA strata managers for submitting your returns. Your contributions offer valuable insight into this important sector and support State Government policy development.
Landgate upgrades credit card payment gateway
From 1 October 2025, you may notice a slight change to the way you pay for Landgate products and services by credit card.
Landgate is introducing a new payment gateway, CommWeb, managed by Commonwealth Bank, which ensures world-class security that will enhance Landgate’s credit card payment security profile.
Instead of entering your credit card details directly into the Landgate shopfront or in MyLandgate, you will now be taken to a CommWeb pop up window to enter your credit card details safely and securely.
Once your credit card details have been submitted, you will be taken back to the Landgate site to a page which will display your Landgate Request number once payment and order processing is complete.
There will be no additional fees to customers as a result of this new payment gateway implementation.
These changes will align Landgate with industry best practice to ensure the security of our customers personal information across all Landgate transactions and consistency with other payment options across the Landgate website.
