What to do when the file is incomplete on the day of completion
What to do when the file is incomplete on the day of completion
The problem is not that a document is missing. The problem is that it is missing on the day of completion, when all parties are ready, the deed is engrossed, and postponing carries a real cost.
Before deciding what to do, there are three questions to answer: whether the missing document is essential or peripheral, whether it can be obtained quickly, and whether proceeding without it exposes the transaction to a defect.
Categorise before deciding
Not every missing document carries the same weight. Some documents are necessary for the deed to proceed: the client's identity document, the title deeds in a transfer of land, the authority under which a representative is acting. Others complete the file but are not essential to the act itself: a copy of a prior deed referred to by description, a plan that was reviewed in an earlier form and was not re-provided.
The first task when a file is incomplete is to determine which category the missing item falls into. That is what determines the decision.
If an essential document is missing, completion should be postponed. If the missing item is peripheral, the deed can proceed with a clear record of what is outstanding and who is responsible for supplying it.
When to postpone
The decision to postpone does not need to be negotiated with the parties. It is a professional judgment, made by the solicitor or conveyancer responsible for the file.
If the missing document is needed for the deed to be valid, or to correctly identify the parties or the property, postponement is the right decision — even if it causes frustration. A deed completed with a documentary defect is a larger problem than one postponed.
Postponement is also the right response when there is genuine uncertainty: if it is not clear whether a document is essential, waiting to obtain it is safer than assuming it is not needed.
When to proceed
If the missing item is peripheral and its absence does not affect the validity of the deed or the identification of the parties, the deed can proceed. But only with an explicit record of the gap.
That does not mean ignoring the absence. It means logging it: noting in the matter file which document was not provided, when it is expected, and who is responsible for supplying it. That record protects the practice and gives the parties a clear expectation about what follow-up is required.
What is not an option is proceeding without any record at all, as if the absence did not exist.
Client ID is always essential
Identity documents deserve a separate note because their absence is never peripheral.
If a party arrives without their identity document — or if there was already a known problem with an expired document flagged in an earlier review — there is no professional basis for proceeding. Completion should be postponed.
In practice, what prevents this situation is not making the right call at the last moment: it is completing the document review early enough, and communicating clearly to the client, in writing, which documents they need to produce and in what condition. A reminder sent the day before completion — specifying what each party needs to bring — significantly reduces the chance of arriving at a signing with a file that is not ready.
Review early, not the morning of completion
The most efficient moment to discover a missing document is not completion day. It is when the pre-completion review is done.
When the file is reviewed with enough advance notice — not in the hours before completion, but with several days of margin — there is time to request the document, for parties to locate it, and to resolve unexpected gaps without pressure.
A file reviewed three days before completion has room to recover from a missing document. One reviewed on the morning of completion does not.
Treating the document review as a discrete step in the matter — with its own deadline and a clear output, either complete or outstanding with a list of what is missing — is what turns a missing document into a manageable issue rather than a last-minute problem.
The aim is to arrive at the completion date already knowing the file is ready. Anything that prevents the review from happening early enough to achieve that is, in practice, the problem that needs addressing.
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