Contracts are a central building block of Australia’s legal system and form the foundation of B2B and B2C relationships. Contracts have evolved from hard copy documents signed with ink to electronically signed documents. However, the contracting process is prone to error and difficult to negotiate, copies can be easily lost, and versioning can be difficult to manage. Worse, contracts are not living and static after the date of execution.
The Brief
Lander & Rogers partnered with beNEXT, developers of an intuitive platform based on blockchain technology to deliver simple, smart legal contracts. Together, through combining market-leading legal expertise and innovative blockchain technology, the partnership set out to streamline Agency Authority Agreements.
An Agency Authority Agreement is a contract that enables a client (seller, landlord or other person) to appoint an agency to act (buy, sell, lease or manage real estate) on their behalf.
The Challenge
Whether you're buying or leasing a property, or if you are the seller or landlord on the other side of the transaction, the process of executing an Agency Authority Agreement can be a manual, time-consuming process.
Lander & Rogers and beNEXT set out to simplify Agency Authority Agreements by automating workflow and making it quick and seamless to navigate and complete. The main challenge in automating the Agency Authority Agreement was consolidating the multitude of agreements that exist across Australia into one consistent smart legal contract that is legally binding across every state.
The Solution
The team from Lander & Rogers collaborated with beNEXT to utilise its platform to build a smart contract using blockchain: an automated Agency Authority Agreement.
The automated Agency Authority Agreement presents many significant benefits including:
- seamlessly guiding agents and individuals to complete fully-compliant Agency Authority Agreements
- creating an immutable, single source of truth for each agreement with all information and workflow associated with the agreement process managed and automated
- ability to retain all information and aggregated data reducing the need for version control
- removing the risk, complexity and nuances involved in this heavily regulated environment
- real-time visibility on contract status through a single interface
- consolidation of all Agency Authority Agreements across Australia into one single agreement, legally binding across every state.
- producing a "living" contract where terms and conditions can be triggered, and parties notified after execution
The automated Agency Authority Agreement is an example of smart contracts using blockchain and the future potential of smart legal contracts through bringing together intuitive, innovative technology with leading, legal expertise to deliver a seamless, risk-free contract experience.
Learn more about legal innovation services at Lander & Rogers.
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