Conveyancing guides

The contract is live from the moment it is signed

In Queensland the agent prepares the contract, and buyers routinely sign at an open home or after a phone negotiation. There is no standard practice of a solicitor reviewing it first. That means the document is binding immediately, subject only to whatever conditions are written into it.

The three conditions that matter most are finance, building and pest, and the cooling off period. Each has a date. Miss one and the protection is gone, and a request for an extension has to be agreed by the other side, who is under no obligation to agree.

Send the contract to your solicitor the day you sign it. Not the day before finance is due. The first 48 hours are when the options are widest.

Seller disclosure since 1 August 2025

This is the biggest change to Queensland residential conveyancing in years. From 1 August 2025, the Property Law Act 2023 (Qld) requires a seller to give the buyer a disclosure statement in the approved form, together with prescribed certificates, before the buyer signs the contract.

The consequence for getting it wrong is significant. If the statement is not given, or it is materially inaccurate or incomplete and the buyer was not aware of the correct position, the buyer may terminate the contract at any time before settlement.

For sellers, that means the disclosure material has to be prepared before the property is listed, not scrambled together after an offer arrives. For buyers, it means reading the statement and the attached certificates properly, because they will tell you about rates, encumbrances, notices and orders affecting the property.

Settlement, and the things that delay it

Settlement in Queensland is now largely electronic, and the process is more reliable than it was. The delays that remain are almost always the same handful.

• Finance approval that is unconditional in an email but not in the bank's system.
• Identity verification not completed, which cannot be skipped for an electronic settlement.
• A discharge of mortgage not lodged by the seller's bank in time.
• Transfer duty not paid or not correctly assessed, including where a concession is claimed.
• A defect found on the final inspection, which is a poor time to discover the property is not in the contracted condition.

Transfer duty deserves attention early. Home and first home concessions can substantially change what you need at settlement, and eligibility depends on how you intend to occupy the property. Get that assessed at the start rather than in the last week.