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About Legal Kits of Victoria

Legal Kits of Victoria grew out of the Consumers' Law Reform Association, whose members published Victoria's first Do-it-Yourself conveyancing kit in 1976 under the authorship of Dale Sedgman.

That Conveyancing Kit became a phenomenon of the legal world, by creating an effective alternative to solicitors for real estate conveyancing - at only about 5% of the prevailing cost. This DIY alternative spawned a new wave of conveyancing alternatives, with the proliferation of conveyancing companies from 1983 onward, when the Labor government of the day made it clear to the solicitors that harassment of competitive conveyancing alternatives by the solicitors' trade association (the "Law Institute") had to stop.

The rest is history - lawyers lost a large part of their conveyancing monopoly.

Most homebuyers and sellers are not aware of how much they owe to the conveyancing kit. Conveyancing fees in 1976 were around $700 and if that fee had continued to rise with inflation then conveyancing would be costing about $4000 today.

Real estate agents have shown what happens to fees when competition is banned in favour of a small self-serving elite. Their fees (a percentage of the selling price of their clients' properties rather than the value of work done) have "gone through the roof" and become a major impediment to changing houses. (And the agents have the gall to condemn the State Government's percentage based stamp duty because it escalates with property values!)

The value of the opening of the conveyancing market has been diminished somewhat by:

• the nature of the self-serving cowboy industry that emerged, and
• the lack of "intestinal fortitude" of the last Government. (Like a horse propping at a hurdle, the Government allowed conveyancers to operate, but legislated to require them to declare on all their public correspondence whether or not they had a professional indemnity policy. The lawmakers were intruding into "market protection" here - "professional indemnity" policies are of no practical use to consumers because they are there to protect the professional, not the consumer. Despite this, conveyancers feel driven to have such policies for fear that potential customers will see it as important.
• The insurance industry's astonishing price gouging in the wake of "September 11" which drove up the cost of conveyancing
• More recently, Victorian government legislation to license non-lawyer conveyancers (from 1 July 2008) has increased prices further, so that non-lawyer conveyancers prices are now similar to those of lawyers. So why bother dealing with conveyancers?

The history of conveyancing in Victoria since the 1970's is a pungent illustration of the inability of (successive) Governments to put the public first.

But enough about conveyancing.

Other Kits

Over the years Legal Kits of Victoria added other kits to its range, first the Probate Kit, and then the Will Kit and Power of Attorney Kit.

In Probate, Legal Kits of Victoria has become a recognised and significant player, and is a member of the Supreme Court's Probate Users committee. (If you see problems in the probate area that you think should be looked at, email us - the email address is given below).

The Will Kit has also proved a trail blazer, with an extraordinary number of "copy cat" Will Kit marketers appearing on the scene (and some of them disappearing just as fast).

Last edited: 01-Apr-2009