PEXA smells victory
The monopoly in Australian property transfers is on the verge of irrevocable.
When the directors of national electronic property conveyancing monopoly PEXA meet for the first time in early 2026 they will have occasion to celebrate a remarkable milestone. It will be eight years since the Australian states passed laws mandating a competitive marketplace for electronic conveyancing, yet we are no closer today to having that competition.
So confident is PEXA managing director Russell Cohen that he will face no competition in the foreseeable future that last week he took legal action against the New South Wales Registrar General Danusia Cameron, a state official. Cohen is ropeable that Cameron won’t allow him to pass on a $1 per transaction fee – charged by governments for maintaining and upgrading the National eConvencing Data Standards – to his customers.
For the uninitiated, Cohen and PEXA are suing their biggest data supplier (the NSW government) on which PEXA makes an 88 per cent gross margin as the monopoly supplier of e-conveyancing services in the state. The NSW Registrar General has the power to fine PEXA $10 million and $250,000 a day for not allowing a competitor to enter the market, but PEXA does just that and has not been fined or even sent a “dear John” letter from Cameron.
