Ideal Conveyancing: halving review time and giving conveyancers their day back

Ideal Conveyancing's six conveyancers bring more than 160 years of combined experience to every contract they review. What they were short of was time. Since adopting Curia, the firm has halved its review time, cut turnaround that could stretch to 48 hours, and given its team something rare in conveyancing: the chance to finish work early.

The challenge

Ideal Conveyancing acts for buyers, sellers and property transfers across Victoria from offices in Officer, Ferntree Gully and Warragul. Its clients consistently praise the team for prompt, personal service. Before Curia, each review took an average of 60 minutes, much of it spent reading special conditions line by line. In busy periods, review turnaround could stretch to 48 hours.

The firm wanted to lighten the load on its conveyancers without compromising the accuracy their clients rely on. The goal was simple: help staff complete reviews accurately and quickly, and give them back time in their day.

Time back in the day

Ask the team what has changed and the answer isn't a statistic: "Finishing work early, what the heck."

The hours spent reading contracts were hours taken from clients and from the end of the working day. Curia hasn't changed the judgement the team brings to each review. It has removed the slowest part of getting there. As the team puts it, the real value lies in "...most importantly giving back our Conveyancers time in their day - we know that is in short supply."

They're in no hurry to go back. Without Curia, the team says it would return to "the old way of literally reading line for line special conditions," with its time and cost savings gone and turnaround back to as long as 48 hours.

The results

Review time and turnaround halved

Average review time has fallen from 60 minutes to 30 minutes, a 50% reduction on every contract. The effect flows straight through to clients. "Using Curia has reduced our turnaround time for reviews (at least) in half," the team reports, and faster turnaround is the change clients have noticed most.

Special conditions without the line-by-line read

Curia analyses special and general conditions and lays out an overview of each one, which the team describes as the biggest change to its review process. "Curia's ability to review, accurately, special / general conditions is worth its weight in gold."

For Victorian contracts, Curia also summarises Section 173 Agreements and MCP documents, putting more time-consuming documents in front of the conveyancer in a form that is quick to assess.

Accuracy checked before the review begins

Preflight checks the contract documents for inconsistencies before the review starts, so issues surface early rather than mid-review. Data extraction, which the team rates as Curia's most valuable feature, has had the strongest effect on workflow efficiency.

Full control of the final report

The team has full editing control over every report, from structure and amendments to the additional points a particular client needs. Curia handles the data work and the conveyancer decides what goes in and out.

Significant cost savings

Alongside the time savings, Ideal Conveyancing reports significant cost savings since implementing Curia.

Looking ahead

Curia continues to work with Ideal Conveyancing to shape the platform around how the firm reviews contracts and presents advice to its clients. New capability arrives regularly, and as the team puts it, "the improvements each time I enter Curia are brilliant."

Ideal Conveyancing rates its likelihood of recommending Curia to other conveyancing professionals at a perfect 10 out of 10. Its advice to a colleague over coffee is direct: "Call James and try it out."