Aussie Home Loans has had to move to a new conveyancing partner for in-house conveyancing services after the news that Settle Easy had called in administrators.
Major brokerage Aussie Home Loans, part of the Lendi Group, has confirmed that it has partnered with Bond Property Lawyers (Bond) to provide ongoing conveyancing services to Aussie clients, after learning that Settle Easy had entered voluntary administration (VA).
The Melbourne-based law firm specialising in residential conveyancing was first established in 2019 by chairperson and co-founder Sam Almaliki and had grown over the years to offer conveyancing services to customers, agents, and brokers across Australia.
However, in a LinkedIn post on Thursday evening, Almaliki revealed that the company had “made the difficult decision to put the company into voluntary administration” after “anticipated funding” had not materialised.
At 3pm on Thursday (21 May), conveyancing platform Settle Easy – which has around 85 employees across Australia – appointed Salea Advisory to handle its voluntary administration to determine the best path forward for the business and its creditors.
All of the assets, business, and undertakings of the companies are now under the control of the administrator.
In his post, Almaliki said: “While there will be a time to reflect on as well as recognise the many people who were an integral part of our journey, our focus right now is on our people and our customers as we work through the voluntary administration process.
“Whatever comes of VA, the business is unlikely to be at the scale that it is at today.
“Supporting our team along with making sure our customers settle seamlessly is the focus right now. Thank you for your support at this challenging time.”
The administrators have said that the current strategy for the voluntary administration is to continue trading the business of the companies, with a view to exploring a restructuring or implementing a going concern sale of business/assets.
“While we explore the current strategy there may be certain settlement files that are transferred to other conveyancing providers, that is, if customers and distribution partners of the Companies so require,” Salea Advisory said.
On Monday (25 May), Salea added that it planned to continue trading the business of the companies, with a view to exploring a restructuring or implementing a going concern sale of business or sale of assets.
The administrator said that it was their intention to "attend to and complete in the normal course of business all scheduled and prospective settlements that are due to settle before 30 June 2026", but that they were "unable to commit to any settlements at this time that have a settlement date that will occur after 30 June 2026".
However, this may be revised depending on any sale or restructuring proposal received.
Settle Easy staff are expected to be kept to ensure delivery of settlements up until 30 June 2026 and "possibly longer", if there is a sale or restructuring offer received.
Salea said it would transfer any settlement files to any new service provider if directed to in writing by any customer
of the companies (subject to any applicable lien for unpaid costs).
An initial meeting of creditors of the companies is due to be held by Tuesday, 2 June 2026, and the future of the companies will likely be decided at second meetings of creditors to be held in approximately five to six weeks.
Aussie moves to Bond Property Lawyers
Settle Easy was the exclusive partner of Aussie’s conveyancing service, Aussie Conveyancing, as part of Aussie’s Find.Buy.Own offering.
The partnership enabled home buyers to access Settle Easy’s conveyancing support, track their home loan, and view real-time notifications via the Aussie broker platform.
Aussie has told The Adviser that, based on information currently available to it, existing in-flight settlement matters are expected to continue progressing, but brokers will be updated if that changes.
The brokerage said its priority is to ensure that any Aussie customer with a settlement in progress is “supported, with minimal disruption, during this critical part of their purchase”.
The Lendi spokesperson continued: “Conveyancing remains an important pillar in our Find, Buy, Own strategy. We have established a new conveyancing agreement with Bond. They have been integrated into our Platform and they are already taking new leads. They are also ready to accept in-flight files from Settle Easy, if necessary.”
Bond has begun taking new conveyancing referrals in the home lending specialist channel, and this is expected to be scaled across mobile and retail channels in due course.
Brokers will be able to access a portal to view settlement status, including email or SMS notifications at different stages, for both new referrals and in-flight files that are moved to Bond.
Aussie has also now set up a dedicated conveyancing support team, leaning on its client solutions team in Manila, to run a settlement review process. It will reportedly share daily updates on Aussie customers’ in-flight matters via MS Teams, starting on Friday (22 May).
[Related: Aussie partners with Selling Houses Australia]
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