Hire an Offshore Conveyancing Assistant in Australia Without an Agency

Hire an Offshore Conveyancing Assistant in Australia: Without Paying Agency Margin

If you want to hire an offshore conveyancing assistant in Australia and you’re looking for a straight answer: yes, it works, and no, you don’t need to go through an agency to do it. This guide covers exactly what tasks an offshore assistant can handle, how PEXA access works in practice, what it costs, and how to run a proper screening process that separates candidates with real Australian conveyancing experience from those who just list it on a CV.

Conveyancing is one of the most process-standardised roles in Australian legal services. Every residential transaction moves through roughly the same sequence: contract review, title searches, requisitions, PEXA workspace setup, discharge tracking, settlement coordination, post-settlement filing. That predictability is what makes offshore conveyancing support transferable to a remote hire. The barrier isn’t skill complexity; it’s platform access and clear communication protocols. Both are solvable.

What Does an Offshore Conveyancing Assistant Do?

The tasks that suit an offshore conveyancing assistant hire are high-volume and process-following, the ones that eat your day without requiring a licensed conveyancer to perform them. In practice, that includes:

Title searches across Landata (VIC), NSW LRS, Landgate (WA), and Queensland Titles: ordering, tracking, and filing results against the matter

Contract preparation scheduling: populating templates, flagging special conditions for solicitor review, managing version control

PEXA workspace creation and management: inviting parties, updating financial settlement figures, tracking lodgement status

Settlement booking and coordination: liaising with banks, outgoing mortgagees, and other side’s representative

Discharge of mortgage tracking: following up lenders and recording progress in the matter file

Requisitions drafting: preparing standard requisitions on title from precedent, flagging non-standard responses

Vendor and purchaser correspondence: status updates, document requests, booking confirmations

Document filing in practice management software (Actionstep, LEAP, Smokeball, GlobalX): naming, filing, and linking documents to matters

Trust accounting data entry: under solicitor supervision, entering receipts and disbursements accurately against matters

These are not peripheral tasks. For a firm running 150+ transactions per year, they represent a significant proportion of total staff hours. An experienced offshore conveyancing assistant from the Philippines, particularly one with prior BPO or direct-hire experience supporting Australian conveyancing firms, will have handled most of this list before. The learning curve is your firm’s specific systems and precedents, not the underlying process.

For a broader view of what offshore legal support looks like across practice areas, see our guide to offshore legal support in Australia.

PEXA: The Platform That Makes Remote Settlement Possible

PEXA (Property Exchange Australia) is Australia’s electronic property settlement network, the platform through which the vast majority of residential property transactions now settle in the eastern states and WA. The operationally important point for offshore hiring: PEXA is entirely cloud-based. There is no on-premises component. Access is provisioned at the firm level, and individual user accounts can be set up with role-appropriate permissions for your staff. Check PEXA’s current participation rules and your subscriber obligations before giving an offshore user access.

That means a PEXA-trained offshore conveyancing assistant in Manila has the same platform access as one sitting in your office, provided PEXA’s rules allow it and you’ve set up their credentials correctly. Many candidates with Australian conveyancing experience working through Philippines BPOs already have hands-on PEXA workspace experience. This is a specific credential to ask for in screening, not a general assumption.

What States Use PEXA?

Electronic settlement via PEXA is mandated or standard practice in VIC, NSW, QLD, WA, and SA. If your practice operates primarily in these states, your offshore conveyancing assistant can be fully integrated into the settlement process. Tasmania and the NT have more limited PEXA adoption. Matters in those jurisdictions may involve more paper-based processes, which is worth factoring in if they represent a material share of your transaction volume.

What Does It Cost to Hire an Offshore Conveyancing Assistant Directly?

The cost difference between direct hire and the agency model is substantial over a 12-month period. Here’s how the numbers compare for Australian firms looking to hire an offshore conveyancing assistant:

Offshore direct hire salary: typically around AUD $1,400 a month (about $16,800 a year) for an experienced assistant with PEXA experience

Tarino fee: $250 upfront plus $4,750 on hire, $5,000 excl. GST, paid once per hire, not ongoing, with the $250 credited back when you hire (pricing)

Agency model (managed staffing providers): Monthly markup on top of the underlying salary, estimated to add around $10,000–$25,000 per year to your actual cost

Local conveyancing assistant: typically around AUD $90,000 a year plus super

In year one, a direct-hire offshore conveyancing assistant costs you roughly $21,800 all in (salary plus placement fee). The same role through a managed staffing agency can cost an estimated $26,800–$41,800. Use the offshore hire cost calculator to model your own firm. A local hire costs around $90,000 a year plus super and other on-costs. For a principal running 150+ transactions annually, the maths is clear, and from year two onwards, the agency margin disappears entirely under the direct-hire model.

For a full breakdown of what agency markups actually look like in practice, see our analysis of offshore agency markups and what Australian businesses really pay.

How to Screen for the Right Offshore Conveyancing Assistant

What to look for on the CV

PEXA workspace experience: specifically: inviting parties, managing financial settlement figures, lodging documents. Generic “PEXA familiarity” is not the same thing.

Title search experience across Australian states: Landata, NSW LRS, Landgate, Queensland Titles. Multi-state exposure is a positive signal.

Practice management software: LEAP, Actionstep, Smokeball, GlobalX. Any combination of these suggests real Australian firm experience.

Employment history with Australian firms or BPOs: either direct hire or via a managed offshore provider. Look for named Australian conveyancing or law firms in the work history.

What to include in the practical task

A practical task is non-negotiable when you hire an offshore conveyancing assistant. Give candidates a realistic scenario: for example, a fictional matter file checklist with items missing; ask them to identify what’s absent before settlement. Or provide a settlement notice template with placeholder fields and ask them to populate it from a brief. Strong candidates approach this methodically. Weak candidates miss obvious gaps or make assumptions they shouldn’t. The task takes 20–30 minutes and tells you more than the CV does.

The video screen

The PEXA question is the one to focus on. Ask specifically: “Walk me through how you’d set up a PEXA workspace for a standard residential purchase.” A candidate with real experience will describe the sequence without prompting: creating the workspace, selecting the transaction type, and inviting the other side’s representative, the incoming mortgagee, and the outgoing mortgagee. A candidate who has listed PEXA on their CV without real experience will give vague or partial answers. This question separates the two groups reliably.

Also test communication clearly in the video screen. Your offshore conveyancing assistant will be managing vendor and purchaser correspondence: their written English and their ability to explain next steps clearly to clients matters.

The 6-Step Direct-Hire Process

Step 1: Write the role spec

List the specific tasks, software platforms, transaction types (residential purchase, sale, refinance, off-the-plan), and the states your firm operates in. Be precise: a candidate reading your spec should know exactly what a day in the offshore conveyancing assistant role looks like.

Step 2: Source candidates with verified experience

Tarino sources and screens candidates with documented Australian conveyancing and PEXA experience. We typically start with 1,000+ candidates per role. About 40% get through CV and quality screening, 20% through video screening, 10% through a practical assessment, 5% through a structured interview and 2% through finalist review. You receive a shortlist of 3–4 candidates in about 2 weeks who have already been assessed against the role requirements, not a raw talent pool.

Step 3: Video screen and practical task

Run the PEXA walkthrough question. Assign the practical file task. Assess communication quality. This stage should produce a clear top one or two candidates.

Step 4: Independent background check

Run a background check independently of any agency. This is standard practice for any hire and is straightforward for Philippines-based candidates through established background check providers.

Step 5: Set up remote access

Provision a PEXA user account with appropriate permissions. Set up their practice management software access (LEAP, Smokeball, Actionstep, whichever your firm uses). Configure a VPN if your firm’s security policy requires it, and ensure your IT policy for offshore staff is documented before day one. For guidance on data privacy obligations, see our Australian data privacy compliance checklist for businesses hiring offshore.

Step 6: 30-day onboarding plan

The onboarding period is where offshore hires either embed successfully or drift. Structure the first 30 days around your firm’s specific precedents, workflows, and communication expectations, not just platform training. Use a documented checklist. For a practical framework, see our guide to your first 30 days with an offshore hire.

Common Questions From Conveyancing Principals

“Can they access PEXA remotely from the Philippines?” In most cases, yes. PEXA is cloud-based. Access is provisioned at the firm level via individual user accounts with role-specific permissions. Check PEXA’s participation rules and your subscriber obligations for offshore users before setting up access. Many offshore conveyancing assistants already have active experience with Australian firm PEXA accounts through prior employment.

“Who supervises the work?” You do, directly. That’s the point of direct hire. Your offshore conveyancing assistant is your employee (or contractor, depending on your engagement structure), working within your firm’s systems, under your supervision. There is no intermediary layer. Most principals find this straightforward once onboarding is complete: daily check-ins, shared task lists in your practice management software, and clear escalation protocols for anything that requires a licensed conveyancer’s judgment.

“What happens if they leave?” In the first 6 months, Tarino’s replacement cover for the same role means a replacement search at no extra recruitment fee, under the conditions in your Scope of Work. More than 95% of our placements are still in the role at 6 months. Beyond that, you’re not paying ongoing margin to an agency, so the economics of replacement are straightforward. Tarino’s placement process can be run again. Unlike an agency model where you’re dependent on the provider’s candidate pool indefinitely, direct hire means you own the relationship and the institutional knowledge stays in your firm’s documented systems.

“Is this different from hiring an offshore paralegal?” Conveyancing assistants and paralegals overlap in some firms, but the offshore conveyancing assistant role is more tightly process-defined: it’s almost entirely transaction workflow rather than legal research or drafting. If your firm also needs broader legal support, see our guide to hiring an offshore paralegal in Australia for comparison.

The Bottom Line

The decision to hire an offshore conveyancing assistant in Australia is not a future consideration. It’s already in use across many Australian firms, mostly through managed staffing agencies that charge ongoing margin for the privilege. The direct-hire alternative can give you the same calibre of candidate, with the same PEXA and platform experience, at significantly lower total cost and without a monthly contract. For a firm running consistent transaction volume, it’s a straightforward business case.

Tarino places offshore conveyancing assistants with Australian law firms and conveyancing practices through a one-time placement process. The fee is $250 upfront plus $4,750 on hire, $5,000 excl. GST, and the $250 is credited back when you hire. There are no ongoing charges. See our offshore legal assistant role page for related roles, or book a 30-minute call.

The Tarino team Tarino publishes what it learns from the work itself.