How to Complete and Sign the Client Authorisation Form (CAF)

The Client Authorisation Form is the ARNECC-prescribed document that lets your lawyer or licensed conveyancer digitally sign registry instruments, lodge them through the Electronic Lodgment Network, and handle financial settlement on your behalf in an Australian electronic property transaction. You complete it once per deal (or once for a defined group of deals), sign it in front of a representative who has verified your identity, and your conveyancer keeps the original on file. The current version is MPR Version 7, published in February 2024, and it applies in every state and territory.

When You Need One

Under the Model Participation Rules, your conveyancer or lawyer must have a signed Client Authorisation in place before they digitally sign any electronic registry instrument on your behalf.¹ That captures almost every property transaction a normal person runs into: buying or selling a home, taking out or discharging a mortgage, refinancing, or transferring title into a trust or company. Platforms like PEXA require the authorisation before your representative can act in the electronic workspace.²

One narrow exception. The form is optional for caveats, priority notices, extensions of priority notices, and withdrawals of priority notices. Your representative still has to take reasonable steps to confirm your authority for those instruments, but the formal ARNECC form is not required.¹

Which Authority Type to Choose

The form asks you to pick one of three authority types. Picking the wrong one is a common compliance error that holds up transactions.

Specific Authority covers a single conveyancing transaction. For most people selling one property or taking out one mortgage, this is the right choice.
Batch Authority covers a defined group of related transactions, such as an apartment development or greenfield subdivision where multiple lots are being transferred. You attach details of every transaction it is meant to cover.
Standing Authority continues until a specified expiration date or, if no date is set, until you revoke it in writing. You must tick the categories of transactions it covers. It suits developers or investors who do not want to sign a fresh form for every deal.

Whichever type you choose, every relevant transaction type must be ticked. If your deal involves both a transfer and a mortgage, select both. Missing one means your representative is not authorised for that instrument.³

What to Have Ready Before You Sign

Gather these before you sit down with your conveyancer:

Your full legal name — every name on your birth certificate or citizenship document, including middle names. It must match your land title records exactly. A shortened first name or a dropped middle name is one of the most frequent findings in compliance audits.³
Your current address.
The land title reference, typically a Volume and Folio number or the equivalent in your state. Your conveyancer can look this up through a title search if you do not have it.
Original identity documents for verification (see below).

Your representative fills in their own details — name, firm, contact information — on the form.

Verifying Your Identity

Before your representative can accept your signed Client Authorisation, they have to verify your identity under the ARNECC Verification of Identity Standard. It is a separate obligation from the form itself, but the two happen together at your first appointment.⁴

The standard requires a face-to-face interview with you and the verifier both physically present. You produce original identity documents from the categories set out in Schedule 8 of the Model Participation Rules. The categories are ranked, and you must use the highest category available to you; a lower category is only acceptable where you do not have the higher-level documents or they have expired. Australian citizens and permanent residents use Categories 1 through 5; non-citizens use Category 6.⁵ The highest category typically needs a current Australian passport plus a second document such as a driver’s licence.

If You Are Overseas

If you are outside Australia, the face-to-face interview cannot happen in your conveyancer’s office. The well-established option is an Australian Embassy, High Commission, or Consulate. You make an appointment, bring your original documents, and a consular officer verifies your identity, prepares endorsed copies, witnesses your signature, and completes a certification.⁵

A video call is not automatically acceptable. Your representative would have to be prepared to justify it as reasonable steps in your particular circumstances, which a court can later test on an objective basis. For most overseas clients, the consular route is safer.⁵

Filling In and Signing the Form

Your conveyancer downloads the current form from arnecc.gov.au. It is an interactive PDF smartform built for Adobe Acrobat Reader and does not work reliably on phones, tablets, or browser-based PDF viewers. ARNECC recommends saving it to a desktop or laptop before opening.⁶

Fill in the relevant fields digitally, then print it. The smartform adds the correct execution blocks dynamically when it prints; the signature blocks do not appear on screen.⁶ Use the version in effect at the time of signing. An old version is a non-compliant outcome in an audit even if every field is correct.³

Both you and your representative sign and date the form. The representative’s signature certifies that they took reasonable steps to confirm the form was signed by you or your authorised agent.⁷

Wet ink is not legally required. Neither the Electronic Conveyancing National Law nor the Model Participation Rules mandate wet signing, so your representative can accept an electronic signature where they are satisfied it complies with the Electronic Transactions Act in your state or territory.⁷ Many firms still prefer wet signatures to remove any ambiguity in an audit.

Signing for Companies, Trusts, or Under a Power of Attorney

Companies

Where a company is the client, the form shows the company’s full registered name as the client, not the director’s personal name and not a trading or business name. Directors sign on the company’s behalf, and their capacity (such as “director”) is noted in the execution block. If the form is not executed under section 127 of the Corporations Act 2001, the parties cannot rely on the presumptions of authority in section 129, and your conveyancer will need to take additional steps to confirm the signatory had authority to bind the company.³

Trusts and SMSFs

Where the property is held by a trust or self-managed superannuation fund, the trustee signs. Each trustee uses their full legal name and notes their capacity as trustee.⁴

Power of Attorney

A person holding a power of attorney, for an individual or a company, can sign as a “Client Agent.” The form must include the agent’s full name and capacity (for example, “attorney under power of attorney”).⁸ Your conveyancer has to obtain a certified copy of the power of attorney and confirm it is current, has not been revoked, and specifically authorises the type of conveyancing transaction involved. If the power requires joint action by multiple attorneys, every one of them has to sign.⁴

Mistakes That Make the Form Non-Compliant

ARNECC publishes the errors found in subscriber compliance audits, and the same ones keep appearing. Any single one produces a non-compliant finding.³

Using an old version of the form.
Folding the authorisation into a retainer or authority to act. It is a standalone prescribed form and must exist as a separate document.
Incomplete names: middle names dropped, shortened first names, or a company’s trading name instead of its full registered name.
No authority type ticked. A blank Specific, Batch, or Standing box is non-compliant.
Missing transaction types. Every instrument in the deal has to be ticked.
Client Agent details left off when someone signs on the client’s behalf.
Unsigned or undated by the client, the client agent, or the representative.

After You Sign: Storage, Revocation, and Death

The form is not lodged with a Land Registry or any government body. Your conveyancer keeps the original as evidence of authority, and it can be requested during a compliance audit by state authorities or produced if the transaction is later disputed.⁴ Ask your conveyancer how long they retain the file; record-keeping obligations vary by state and territory.

Either you or your representative can revoke the authorisation at any time by giving written notice to the other.¹ As a practical matter, revocation has to happen before the electronic workspace is locked for settlement; once settlement runs, it cannot be unwound.⁹

The authorisation also ends automatically on the client’s death. In every state and territory except South Australia, instruments signed under it cannot be lodged after death, whether they were signed before or after. In South Australia, an instrument signed under a Client Authorisation after the client’s death remains valid under section 59 of the Real Property Act 1886.³ Elsewhere, a mid-transaction death effectively stops the deal until executors or administrators are appointed and a fresh authorisation process begins.

1
Australian Registrars’ National Electronic Conveyancing Council. Model Participation Rules Version 7
2
Land Use Victoria. Electronic Lodgment Legal Framework
3
Australian Registrars’ National Electronic Conveyancing Council. Common Errors From Subscriber Compliance
4
Legal Practitioners’ Liability Committee. ARNECC Requirements for Verification of Identity and Client Authorisation
5
Australian Registrars’ National Electronic Conveyancing Council. Guidance Note 2 – Verification of Identity
6
Australian Registrars’ National Electronic Conveyancing Council. ARNECC – Forms
7
Australian Registrars’ National Electronic Conveyancing Council. MPR Guidance Note 1 – Client Authorisation
8
Australian Registrars’ National Electronic Conveyancing Council. Guidance Note 1 – Client Authorisation
9
PEXA. PEXA Service Charter