Referral fees for agents

18 June 2020

Give your buyers and sellers the best conveyancing experience and be rewarded for it

Real estate agents can receive a referral fee from lawlab for successful referrals. That could be as much as $300 per transaction (and up to $400 per transaction until 30 June 2020).

Disclosure of referral fees

The safest way to comply with laws on referral fees is to disclose to buyers and sellers that you will receive a referral fee from lawlab as you are a member of our partner program that ensures that buyers and sellers are referred to lawlab in a consistent and secure way. If you disclose it then you have nothing to worry about.

This disclosure could be included in your standard agency agreement terms and conditions and refer to the usual referral fees you will receive. We can provide some example wording for you. We also provide a real estate compliance legal advice service.

Our referral fee policy

Our policy is to use our marketing budget on paying referral fees rather than on traditional marketing costs. We like to reward agents that refer buyers and sellers in a way that makes administration of client transactions easier thereby saving clients legal costs. That means our conveyancing fees remain very competitive for the high standard of legal service that clients receive. Lawlab makes it very clear to referral partners that we owe our obligations and duties to our customers and we do not act on referrals where a conflict of interest exists.

Lawlab’s partner program is national

We provide legal services to clients in all states and territories in Australia and as we can deliver our service digitally, we are not restricted from paying referral fees in South Australia and Western Australia unlike lawyers and conveyancers with physical offices there. Agents in South Australia are not restricted from receiving referral fees for legal services such as the preparation of contracts (which are not conveyancing instruments that the South Australian laws would otherwise prohibit).

In some states, real estate agents may also be required to provide the prescribed disclosure forms and we have summarised these in the table below.

State Prescribed disclosure form
New South Wales Section 47 Disclosure Form (Property Stock and Agents Act 2002, s 47)
Victoria Not applicable
Queensland POA Form 8 (Given to buyers only) (Property Occupations Act 2014, s157)
Western Australia Form 819 (Real Estate and Business Agents and Sales Representatives Code of Conduct 2016, s16)
South Australia Form R2 (Land & Business (Sale & Conveyancing Act) 1994, s24C)
Australian Capital Territory Form 1 (AF2003-28) (Agents Act 2003, s177)
Tasmania Not applicable
Northern Territory Not applicable

You may be able to incorporate these into your agency agreements, please contact us for further information.

How do you receive the referral fee?

  1. If you haven’t done so already, sign up to our partner program here: https://www.lawlab.com.au/partners
  2. You’ll then receive a unique link to our online instant quote tool that you can provide to your buyers and sellers. If they order a service with us after following that link then we’ll know you’ve referred them.
  3. If you know they need conveyancing right now, you can refer them to us using these links:
    Purchase conveyance: https://go.rundl.com/services/7115372/order?sender_role=1739307&participant_roles=1738779
    Sale conveyance: https://go.rundl.com/services/7115361/order?sender_role=7443522&participant_roles=7443521
  4. You’ll be kept up to date as a participant in the conveyancing rundl for each transaction. You can upload your invoice for the referral fees to lawlab in that rundl 5 days before settlement.
  5. We’ll pay you the referral fee at settlement for electronic settlements and at the end of the month for paper settlements.
  6. For full terms please visit https://www.lawlab.com.au/partners/terms
Disclaimer This information is general in nature only and does not constitute legal advice. Lawlab accepts no liability for the content of this information. You should obtain legal advice specific to your individual circumstances. Lawlab’s liability is limited by a scheme approved under Professional Standards Legislation.
Richie Muir
Richie Muir
Legal Director

Richie is an experienced and commercially astute lawyer specialising in property law. He leads lawlab’s team of legal advisors and is the go-to problem solver for complex or unusual matters.  Having spent many years living and studying in Europe he now calls Brisbane home. Outside of work he juggles his time helping bring up his 2 young daughters, playing football and developing property.

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