This website is operated by Khai Kwan, a law firm in Sydney, NSW.
I am also the principal lawyer of the same firm that bears my name and in case you are wondering, I am also the person responsible for all your property transactions (on the right). The person on the left is Hock Ooi, Adviser. Photo taken by Ryan Stuart and Copyright by AFR.
Violater.com is an auction system and is an value-added service for my fledgling conveyance business. What this really means is that you have to agree to be a client of mine even though you have never met me or spoken a word with me before. But this is not uncommon in our new digital world. Have you spoken to Mark Zuckerberg ? Yes the co-founder of facebook. Neither have I. On the other hand, how can I compare violater.com, a transactional service provider for real estates to facebook ? I can't so you should do your own due diligence first.
Why the name "Violater" ?
Originally
I took the domain name in 2000 for the purpose of running my environmental
project code name "worsite". It was one of the first few projects on
the internet back in 1996-97. It is my view that every time you type those
words, 'violater' uncomfortable as it may be, our mind will collectively remind
us to be vigilant either through our own experience or of drawn from those whom
we know. Be vigilate of those in sheep clothing who may opportunistically
"violate" us. Violaters can be anyone. For example, I am currently
advising a case where a property development under a joint venture agreement
had encroached on more land that he contracted for. He admits taking more land
but refuses to compensate citing it was “understood” that roads (more land)
serving the development would need to be sacrificed for the project to be
approved. Personally, I was previously involved in assessing child abuse claims
in WA. I read over 700 claims and most of them have one commonality and that
they could have been prevented had the authorities been more careful and listen
as there were plenty of tell tell signs. Obviously the line where abuse and corporate
punishments then was a bit blur. This was an epic failure by the governments of
the day but to be fair to them, much effort had been put in to redress them.
While I agree that under normal circumstances there is no place for such a name
in property market space, I consider its usage to serve a public service. I
specifically chosen property space because that is where most abuses happened,
right in the family home. Lastly, least we forget those developers who build
“salt water apartments” in HK or responsible for the highland tower collapse in
Malaysia and much much more. If you are still find this offensive then may I
suggest for a minute image what those who victims must have went through. Then close
this website forever.
What differential violater.com from the others ?
One word. FREE almost - I still need to charge you for the conveyancing work plus disbursement. The fee for conveyance starts at AUD 1000. Your funds are hold in a trust account (either mine or PEXA's Source Account, the choice is yours). Please read this from the Law Society for information about PEXA. These funds will be settled through PEXA for NSW. As for other states they will be done manually until further notice. In line with transactions of such nature, we must subject all local clients to prove their identities with Australian Post by its VOI process. When you register online you will receive instructions on this and this is part of KYC (Know your client) protocol imposed on us by higher authorities. For the sake of transparency, I have included my trust account with Bankwest for your information and verification. Note PEXA will generate details for its Source Account on demand and the Purchaser must agree to this transfer (don't forget 3 days clearing for cheques).
NAME: KHAI KWAN LAW PRACTICE TRUST ACCOUNT
BANK: BANKWEST
BSB NO: 302162 ACCT NO:0911360
SWIFT : BKWAAU6P
What I am doing here ? Well like most lawyers, I like to make myself more useful to my clients so I can justify my charges. That is made more difficult with the consolidation of bigger and more sophisticated law firms but at the very least I am better off than many recent law graduates who are struggling to get work experience. I have even heard of a proposed scheme in SA where one firm wanted to "charge" for experience. In any event, if anyone out there is looking for experiences as an intern, give me a shout. I am more than happy to discuss roles in law and IT over a few pint of Guinness.
What is my Mission or Vision ? I can't tell the difference but I certainly did not stumble out of bed one day and decided to do property auction online. I looked at the property space and asked why is there "no" freely available listing cum auction mechanism to sell properties online. Was it regulation or something else ? As far as I am aware there is nothing in the law to restrain a vendor from auctioning his or her own property. It is understood, some vendors may be shy and do not want the hassle or able to throw away A$ 20K. With some encouragement, I can at least assist those who are familiar with web technology to automate this. Let me be very clear, I am not doing the auctioning for you, its a piece of software running behind that is monitoring and performing the auction routine under your instructions upon submitting your property. Put it another way, remember when the ATM was first introduced more than 40 years ago ? Well I see violater.com as the ATM of all real-estate transactions. I still need to tie up all the back-end plumbing though. I have previously completed a different kind of auction see www.depositoffer.com so I am familiar with its schema.
Why Free ? I am an outsider but everyone loves free, just ask google. Free means I can reach out to more users including real estate agents who would otherwise have to spend a sum of money designing and maintaining such a system. I do not compete with real estate agents as I am not an agent. If agents are able to get a sale for their clients in a shorter cycle using violater.com, they may even consider lowering their commission creating a win-win-win situation for all. Time is money.
Finally, please be aware I do not have any big budget like domain or realestate.com.au. I will put back 30% of what I get from conveyancing into maintaining this system and into advertising. I aim to promote your properties as widely as possible by marketing on facebook, google and the likes. Lets hope my SOE skill is better than my coding. If you have any issues do send me an email (datuk2 at hotmail.com). I am happy to get comments and feedback. I do appreciate comments especially from 'Michelle' in Pyrmont.
