Verification of Identity for Property Loans 2026

Verification of identity (VOI) for a property loan confirms that each person signing the mortgage is who they claim to be. The lender, as mortgagee, is responsible for verifying its borrowers, so your VOI work follows the lender’s instruction. The conveyancer or lawyer on each side verifies their own client for the transfer.

You can complete the lender’s check yourself as its Identity Agent. That status needs the lender’s written appointment and an in-person check under the national Verification of Identity Standard.

The Australian Registrars’ National Electronic Conveyancing Council (ARNECC) guidance note on verification of identity, updated August 2024, sets out these roles for electronic conveyancing. Each state and territory registry applies its own version of the rules and its own paper practice.

Identify the Governing Process

The governing process depends on which party will rely on the check and why. Three checks often run on the same purchase, and each has a different owner.

Check	Purpose	Party responsible	Who can conduct it
Lender customer identification	Anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing (AML/CTF) rules for opening the loan account	The lender	The lender, or a broker following the lender’s or aggregator’s instruction
Property VOI of the mortgagor	Confirms the borrower granting the mortgage is the registered or incoming owner	The lender, as mortgagee	The lender, its Identity Agent or another agent it directs
Conveyancing client VOI	Confirms the buyer or seller before their conveyancer signs land documents for them	The buyer’s or seller’s conveyancer or lawyer	The practitioner, their Identity Agent or another agent

Lender customer identification is a separate obligation from property VOI. A single appointment can cover both only when the lender’s instructions say so. For lender-instructed AML/CTF checks, see how brokers verify customer identity for lenders.

Who Can Conduct the Check

ARNECC’s guidance note, updated August 2024, lets a lender verify the mortgagor itself or through an agent. A mortgage broker can be the lender’s Identity Agent.

To do so, you must provide credit services as a credit licensee, a credit representative or a licensee’s employee or director. Your insurance must also cover verification of identity.

The lender gets the benefit of the Standard’s deeming rule only when four conditions are met. The guidance treats a properly applied Standard as reasonable steps, and the lender still decides whether to rely on your check.

1. The lender appoints you in writing as its Identity Agent, before you meet the borrower.
2. You hold the insurance required by the participation rules.
3. You apply the Verification of Identity Standard in full.
4. You give the lender an Identity Agent Certification in the prescribed wording.

A broker who completes a lender’s form without that appointment is an ordinary agent. The lender can still use the check as part of its own reasonable steps. It just can’t rely on the deeming rule.

Decide the Path Before Choosing a Form

Work through these questions in order before you download any form.

1. Name the transaction: a purchase, refinance, guarantee, transfer between owners or discharge.
2. Name the state or territory where the land sits, because its registry rules apply.
3. Ask who relies on the check: the lender, the client’s conveyancer or the registry for a self-represented party.
4. Confirm your role: Identity Agent, ordinary agent following an instruction or no role.
5. Collect that party’s current instruction and form, then follow it.

The answer at step 3 decides the form. A Western Australian refinance and a New South Wales purchase can both reach you as “VOI”, but they rely on different parties’ instructions.

When Online Identity Verification Is Accepted

Online identity verification never meets the national Verification of Identity Standard, so a lender or conveyancer accepts it only as part of its own reasonable steps for that purpose. A digital check that opens a bank account doesn’t automatically satisfy property VOI.

Under the national Standard, the check must be a face-to-face interview with both people physically present. ARNECC’s guidance note, updated August 2024, says video calls don’t meet the Standard. A lender or conveyancer can still use video or electronic checks as part of other reasonable steps, at their own risk and with their own evidence.

The same guidance lists electronic verification services as a further step for Australian documents when doubts arise. An electronic verification of identity can support a check, but the party relying on it decides whether it completes one.

Lender instructions show how varied these routes are:

• As at October 2026, Bankwest lets home loan applicants verify digitally with a selfie and a photo of their ID. It accepts a current Australian driver’s licence or a passport, but not a digital licence. In-person applicants take the Mortgagor Identity Verification Form to a participating Australia Post outlet.
• ANZ’s online ID check, as at October 2026, applies to deposit accounts, credit cards and personal loans. Its page doesn’t list home loans, so a completed ANZ online check doesn’t show that a mortgagor’s VOI is done.
• Westpac’s public identification page, as at October 2026, lists documents for opening a bank account. It covers customer identification for the account. A Westpac home loan can separately require mortgagor VOI.

Check each lender’s current form against the transaction before you treat its identity instruction as property VOI. The broker portal form and the lender’s settlement instructions take priority over a public account-opening page.

Keep a completion record for whichever route applies. For an in-person check under the Standard, the record is the Identity Agent Certification with endorsed copies. When the lender runs its own digital check, keep the lender’s written confirmation that the check is complete.

Arrange an in-person check when the lender’s instruction asks for the Standard or its digital check can’t verify the client. The same applies when the client’s only photo ID is a type the digital check excludes.

Bulma’s Policy Advisor answers questions about lenders’ documentation policy across 52+ lenders and quotes the policy wording behind each answer. You can keep that wording in the file note beside the lender’s form.

Who Owns Each Instruction

Each body owns a different part of the process:

• ARNECC writes the model participation rules, the Verification of Identity Standard and the Identity Agent Certification wording. Each jurisdiction adopts its own version.
• Landgate owns Western Australia’s paper practice and its self-represented party route.
• A named lender owns its mortgagor VOI instruction, form and the completion record it accepts.
• PEXA verifies the identity of practitioners who join its network, as at October 2026. Client VOI stays with the lawyer or conveyancer, who can do it themselves or use a VOI agent.
• InfoTrack sells digital VOI and onboarding checks to practitioners, as at October 2026. It’s a provider route, so the practitioner or lender using it still decides whether the result meets its obligation.

Use the Land Title Verification of Identity Form

Choose the form named by the party relying on the check, for the state where the land sits. No single national land title verification of identity form exists, so a PDF downloaded from another jurisdiction or an earlier year can be the wrong document.

ARNECC publishes the national pieces. Its forms page lists the Client Authorisation and an Australian embassy, high commission or consulate certification form. The Identity Agent Certification, often called a VOI certificate, uses the wording in Schedule 9 of the January 2024 Model Participation Rules.

Match the Form to the Jurisdiction and Transaction

Each state registry owns its own paper rules, and each lender owns its own mortgagor form. Western Australia shows how narrow a form’s purpose can be.

Landgate’s practice for paper transactions, version 5 dated 7 February 2025, makes the mortgagee responsible for verifying the mortgagor. A separate Landgate route covers self-represented parties, who must be identified by an authorised identifier such as Australia Post. That route uses the “Land Title Verification of Identity Form – Self-Represented Party (Western Australia)”, and it doesn’t apply to a borrower whose lender is the mortgagee.

For counter steps and documents at a post office, use the Australia Post verification of identity guide.

Select the Current Form

Before each appointment, confirm you hold the current version of that form.

1. Get the form from the receiving party’s current instructions: the lender’s broker portal, the conveyancer’s request or the registry’s own page.
2. Check that the form names the right jurisdiction, transaction type and receiving party.
3. Check the form’s version or date against the receiving party’s current list. Replace any copy saved from an earlier file.
4. If you act as Identity Agent, confirm that the certification matches Schedule 9. ARNECC allows formatting changes, but not changes to the wording.

The form is right when its jurisdiction, transaction and recipient all match the file. A lender’s mortgagor form and a self-represented party form aren’t interchangeable, even when both mention land title.

Prepare Identity Evidence

Prepare original, current documents in the highest category the client can meet under the selected process. The national Standard in Schedule 8 of the January 2024 Model Participation Rules sets these combinations.

Category	Minimum documents for Australian citizens or residents
1	Australian or foreign passport, or an ImmiCard, plus an Australian driver’s licence or photo card
2	Passport or ImmiCard, plus a full birth, citizenship or descent certificate, plus a Medicare, Centrelink or Department of Veterans’ Affairs card
3	Australian driver’s licence or photo card, plus a full birth, citizenship or descent certificate, plus a Medicare, Centrelink or Department of Veterans’ Affairs card
4	Passport or ImmiCard plus another government photo ID, or passport or ImmiCard plus a full birth certificate and another government ID
5	An Identifier Declaration by someone who knows the person, plus supporting cards and certificates

Every category also needs a change of name or marriage certificate where the names differ. Category 6 covers people who aren’t Australian citizens or residents and starts with a foreign passport.

Apply the Standard’s Document Rules

The Standard sets these rules for the interview:

1. Start with Category 1. Move down only when the client can’t meet the higher category.
2. Sight the original of every document. Copies brought to the meeting don’t count.
3. Check that each document is current. An Australian passport that expired within the last two years and isn’t cancelled still counts.
4. Compare each photo with the person in front of you.
5. Keep copies of every document produced, endorsed as true copies when you act as Identity Agent.

Digital driver licences need extra care. ARNECC’s guidance note, updated August 2024, says a digital licence may satisfy the Standard only where the jurisdiction’s law allows it. A lender’s own instruction can still exclude it, as Bankwest’s digital check does as at October 2026.

Request documents through a secure channel before the meeting so you can spot a missing category early. The document collection guide covers secure ways to request them.

Hypothetical Evidence Plan

This hypothetical refinance shows how the category choice works. Two borrowers in Perth are refinancing to a new lender that appoints the broker as its Identity Agent.

Borrower	Documents held	Category used	Why
Borrower A	Current Australian passport and current driver’s licence	Category 1	Both documents are current originals with photos
Borrower B	Australian passport that expired 18 months ago, Medicare card and full birth certificate, with no licence or photo card	Category 2	Without a licence or photo card, Category 1 can’t be met. The passport expired less than two years ago and isn’t cancelled

Borrower B’s passport would fall outside the Standard once it has been expired for more than two years. At that point the broker would move to a lower category or the lender’s other route.

Handle Exceptions

Handle exceptions by returning to the party relying on the check before you vary the method. These cases have defined paths under the Standard and ARNECC’s guidance note, updated August 2024.

Overseas Signers

A borrower overseas can’t attend a face-to-face meeting with you in Australia. ARNECC’s guidance names an Australian embassy, high commission or consulate as one option. The consular officer checks the person’s photo ID, makes endorsed copies, witnesses the signing and completes a certification.

Landgate’s paper practice, version 5 dated 7 February 2025, says verification outside Australia should be done by an Australian Consular Officer, who should also witness the document. For the lender’s mortgage, follow the lender’s overseas instruction, which may name the consulate or an international law firm or bank. Broader lending rules for borrowers living abroad are in the Australian expat home loan guide.

Representatives

Representatives need identity and authority checks. The Standard sets these steps:

• For an attorney, confirm the donor and attorney from the registered power of attorney. Check that it authorises this transaction, then verify the attorney’s identity.
• For a company, confirm the company exists, such as through an Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) search. Establish who can sign for it and verify each signer.
• For an Identity Declarant under Category 5, have both people attend the same in-person meeting. Verify the declarant’s identity too, without using Category 5 for them.

Name Discrepancies

A name discrepancy needs evidence that links the names. Where the client changed their name, the Standard requires a change of name or marriage certificate.

Some clients have a full name on a passport and a shortened or anglicised name on a licence, with no formal change. ARNECC’s guidance note suggests sighting other documents in their name, confirming details with the issuing body or asking about the difference. Record the answers and why you accepted them.

When to Stop

Stop and report to the receiving party when a document doesn’t look genuine or a photo isn’t a reasonable likeness. The same applies when the person doesn’t seem to match the documents. ARNECC’s guidance note also lists cancelled documents and differing signatures as reasons for further steps.

Check Signing Acceptance

Confirm electronic, witnessed and wet-ink requirements with the receiving party for each document before the client signs. The answer differs between the documents in a property loan.

The Client Authorisation lets a conveyancer sign land documents for the client in an Electronic Lodgment Network. ARNECC’s guidance note on Client Authorisations, updated August 2024, says no rule requires it to be wet-signed. The conveyancer decides whether an electronic signature complies with the state’s electronic transactions law.

A witness depends on how the conveyancer verified the client. Under the Standard, an overseas client signs the Client Authorisation at an Australian Consular Office, which witnesses it. A conveyancer using other reasonable steps can choose a different witness or electronic signing.

For the mortgage, the lender must take reasonable steps to make sure the identified borrower is the one granting it. The ARNECC guidance note, updated August 2024, suggests checking the VOI evidence to confirm the same person is signing. Ideally, the borrower signs at the same meeting where you verify them.

Ask the lender these questions before the appointment:

1. Does it accept electronic signatures on its loan and mortgage documents, or does it need wet ink?
2. Must the Identity Agent witness the mortgage at the VOI meeting?
3. Who can witness documents signed overseas?

Record each answer with the date and the name of the person who confirmed it.

Retain the Result

Return the completion record and authorised-agent documents to the party responsible for the transaction. For a mortgagor VOI, that party is the lender. The lender relies on the record when it certifies the mortgage.

As Identity Agent, send the lender this completion pack:

• the signed Identity Agent Certification, naming the person verified, the date, the documents produced and the Standard
• endorsed copies of every document sighted, signed and dated as true copies
• the lender’s written appointment of you as Identity Agent, or its reference number
• the lender’s own VOI form, where it asks for one

ARNECC’s guidance note on retaining evidence, updated August 2024, applies to the subscriber relying on the check, usually the lender or conveyancer. That subscriber keeps it for at least seven years from lodgment. The evidence must stay legible, secure and accessible.

Record the Handover in Your File

Record these details in your own file for later review:

Detail	What to record
Completion evidence	Which certification, form and copies you sent
Authority	The lender’s written appointment and the date it was made
Date	The date of the in-person meeting and the date you sent the pack
Recipient	The lender, team or portal that received it, with any reference number
Location	The secure folder or system where your copy is kept

The ARNECC guidance note also lets a subscriber skip re-verification within two years when the same subscriber can confirm it’s dealing with the same person. That two-year window belongs to the party that relied on the earlier check. ARNECC says a subscriber normally can’t rely on another subscriber’s Identity Agent Certification without an agency arrangement between them.

The file is complete when the receiving party confirms it has accepted the VOI. Its certification must match the borrower’s name on the mortgage, and your record must show the authority, date, recipient and file location.