RuleArts and New South Wales Government

Monday, July 13, 2009

New South Wales Government

Land and Property Management Authority

Business context : Electronic conveyancing

NSW Land and Property Management Authority (LPM Authority) is actively participating in the development of the National Electronic Conveyancing System (NECS). The NECS is to be a single national facility to provide a convenient electronic way for legal practitioners, conveyancers, banks and mortgage processors to:

• prepare dealings and related instruments to register changes in property ownership and interests
• settle financial transactions, including payment of duties, taxes and disbursements
• comply with the tax and duty requirements of the relevant State or Territory Revenue Office
• lodge their dealings and instruments with the relevant State or Territory Land Registry
• receive confirmation of the lodgment and registration of dealings and instruments.

Business rules are a critical component to the development and operation of the NECS. They collectively provide the statement of requirements for the NECS’ functionality. Their comprehensive definition is the first stage of the detailed specification for provisioning, testing, commissioning, implementing, operating and maintaining the NECS. The functionality and operations of the NECS are described in the NECS National Business Model available at http://www.necs.gov.au/National-Business-Model/default.aspx.

The business rules are structured into eight sets with the objective of separating jurisdiction-specific requirements from common requirements that apply generally to all participating jurisdictions. This approach is intended to:

• accommodate the legislative, procedure and practice differences between jurisdictions
• limit the local changes in practices and procedures necessary in any jurisdiction to participate
• contain the impact of any jurisdiction’s specific requirements on the delivery of the NECS’ services generally and on any other jurisdiction’s specific requirements in particular.

The eight sets of business rules required for NECS are: 

• registration of Subscribers 
• user administration and support
• registration and authentication of Certifiers
• assembly and execution of financial settlements
• creation and handling of registry instruments and information reports
• ensuring a jurisdiction Land Registry’s requirements for registry instruments are satisfied
• ensuring a jurisdiction Revenue Office’s requirements for duty and tax compliance are satisfied
• ensuring fees, duties and taxes are collected.

LPM Authority administers the NSW jurisdiction Land Registry, and is responsible for rules regulating creation and handling of registry instruments for NSW, that requirements for NSW registry instruments are satisfied, and the NSW Revenue Office’s requirements for duty and tax compliance are satisfied.

Business rules developed by LPM Authority for NECS are being managed with RuleXpress. The types of rules are classified in a taxonomy, and templates for the various rule statements required for each rule type are defined. The placeholders in the templates are designed to be ‘filled in’ with the terms, and use the fact statements found in the organisation’s Structured Business Vocabulary (SBV) also maintained in RuleXpress. The rules have been written using SBV terms and relationships together with the business rule statement templates. The SBV consists of a glossary, taxonomy of terms, and fact model (relationships between terms) that is used to write clear and concise business rules. The SBV allows business rules to be written in a natural business English for manual application (and ready comprehension by third parties), and the logical structure assists in easy development of automated electronic application of those rules.

The implementation of business rules for NECS provides for rule automation within the NECS System and the Subscriber systems from which NECS transactions are to be sourced. LPM Authority considers that implementation of Land Registry business rules within industry documentation systems linked to NECS will assist in compilation of ‘right first time’ documents and cases, and provide return on investment through avoided ‘requisitions’ well upstream from the Land Registry.

LPM Authority is committed to consultation with industry participants in developing products and services for NECS, and has published the draft SBV, rule statement templates and Land Registry business rules for NECS for review and comment. For more information or to access these publications, visit the LPM Authority’s NECS in NSW Readiness Program at: http://necsnsw.lands.nsw.gov.au/home.