NSW contract for sale and Victoria's Section 32: what is disclosed

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In New South Wales and Victoria, a home sale starts with paperwork the buyer has not yet asked for. In New South Wales the vendor needs a complete draft contract, with a set of documents attached, before the home can be offered at all. In Victoria the vendor has to hand over a signed statement, known as the Section 32, before the purchaser signs anything. Both rules do the same job, which is to put the facts about the title in front of the buyer early, but they work differently and they fail differently.

This guide sets the two regimes side by side, using what the state regulators publish: NSW Fair Trading for New South Wales and Consumer Affairs Victoria for Victoria. It covers what must be ready and when, which documents are attached, what happens when one is missing or wrong, and where each state's disclosure stops. It describes the general rules. How they apply to a given sale depends on the property and on the contract, which is the work of a solicitor or a licensed conveyancer.

NSW Fair Trading pages last updated 22 September 2025; Consumer Affairs Victoria page last updated 1 April 2026.

New South Wales: no contract, no marketing

NSW Fair Trading puts the rule in one sentence in its guidance for property agents: residential property cannot be offered for sale until a contract of sale has been prepared. The page is dated 22 September 2025.

Two conditions sit inside that sentence. The first is who prepares the document. According to Fair Trading's guidance for buyers, the contract must be prepared by an Australian legal practitioner or a licensed conveyancer. An agent does not draft it. The second is timing: the contract has to be made available before the property goes on the market, not at the moment a buyer makes an offer.

Availability has a practical meaning. Fair Trading says the draft contract must be available for inspection at the agent's office. As a general rule, every agent offering the property must hold the proposed contract. The exception is a conjunction agreement, where two agencies work on the same sale: in that case only the listing agent needs to hold the contract, provided the conjunction agents can get access to it when they need it.

For a vendor, the consequence is an order of work. The solicitor or conveyancer is instructed first, the searches and certificates are gathered, and the listing follows. For a buyer, it means the contract can be requested from the first inspection. Fair Trading's advice to buyers is to ask for it early so that their own solicitor or conveyancer has time to read it.

What counts as offering a home for sale in NSW

The rule would be easy to step around if "offering" meant only a signed listing. Fair Trading's definition is much wider. An agent offers a property for sale when, expressly or by implication, they do any one of four things:

1. indicate that the property is for sale or will be auctioned;
2. offer to sell it;
3. invite an offer to purchase it;
4. indicate that a person may be willing to grant an option to purchase it.

The guidance then lists acts that are treated as indicating a sale when no proposed contract is available. They are everyday marketing steps: advertising or promoting the property in a way that suggests it is for sale, placing a sign on or near it, advertising or giving notice of a future auction, advertising at any premises, vehicle or place where the agent does business, and showing or giving the property's address to a prospective purchaser. The agent is caught whether they do the act themselves, cause it or permit it.

In practice this closes the gap for the quiet early stage of a campaign. A board outside the home, a notice of a future auction or an address passed to a known buyer all fall inside the list if the contract is not yet ready. The pages read for this guide do not set out the penalty for marketing without a contract, so this guide does not state one.

The documents attached to a NSW contract

The attachments are set by statute. Fair Trading's agent guidance names section 52A of the Conveyancing Act 1919 as the source of the requirement, and says the full list of prescribed documents is in Schedule 1 of the Conveyancing (Sale of Land) Regulation 2022.

Fair Trading publishes two summaries of that list, one written for agents and one for sellers. They overlap but they are not identical, and the difference is worth seeing. The agent page speaks of a planning certificate issued by the local council; the seller page calls it a current Zoning Certificate and gives the reference "section 10.7". The seller page adds a copy of the registered plan, which the agent page does not list. The agent page adds a notice about smoke alarms and loose-fill asbestos insulation, which the seller page does not list.

Neither summary claims to be complete. Both point back to the regulation, and the regulation itself was not read for this guide, so the table should be taken as the regulator's own shorthand and not as the statutory list.

Beyond the attachments, the agent guidance says the contract must include any property exclusions, meaning what is left out of the sale, and the prescribed statement about the cooling-off period. The seller guidance adds that the contract may state what is included as well as what is excluded.

There is also a layer the parties do not write. The seller guidance says the conveyancing legislation prescribes certain terms and warranties into the contract, and that conditions may be needed to deal with them. The page does not list those terms, so they are not described here.

Pools, strata lots and off-the-plan sales in NSW

Three kinds of property bring extra paper.

A swimming pool or spa pool. Fair Trading says the contract for a property with a pool must attach one of three things: a copy of a valid certificate of compliance; a relevant occupation certificate together with evidence that the pool is registered; or a valid certificate of non-compliance. The seller guidance adds that the occupation certificate must have been issued in the past 3 years. It gives no time limit for the other two options. The requirement does not apply to a lot in a strata or community scheme with more than two lots, or to any off-the-plan contract.

The third option surprises many readers: a home can be sold in NSW with a pool that does not comply, provided the contract says so with the proper certificate. What follows is described in Fair Trading's guidance on inspection reports. Unless the seller fixes the problems and obtains a certificate of compliance before settlement, a non-compliant pool typically becomes the buyer's responsibility within 90 days of settlement.

A strata lot. Fair Trading's guidance on buying a strata property, last updated 1 April 2026, says the seller must include a copy of the strata plan in the contract of sale and that a copy of the by-laws must be attached. The same page describes a separate document, the section 184 certificate, which comes from the owners corporation. It shows the levies payable and any levies outstanding for the lot, the proposals for funding the 10-year capital works plan, by-laws made in the previous 6 months that have not yet been lodged, whether a strata renewal committee exists and whether the scheme has an embedded network. One protection follows from it: according to Fair Trading, an outstanding levy that is not shown on the certificate is not the purchaser's responsibility.

An off-the-plan sale. Here the home does not yet exist as a registered lot, so the contract carries drafts in place of final records. Fair Trading lists a Disclosure Statement that outlines key information, a draft plan prepared by a registered surveyor, any proposed schedule of finishes, any dealing proposed to be lodged with the plan and draft by-laws. Depending on the kind of scheme, the list goes on to a draft management statement and any proposed development contract, a draft strata development contract, a draft strata management statement and any draft building management statement.

When a NSW document is missing: the 14-day right

The sanction for an incomplete contract falls on the sale itself. According to Fair Trading's agent guidance, if a required document is not attached before the contract is signed, the purchaser may rescind, that is cancel, the contract within 14 days of exchange.

Two limits apply. The clock runs from exchange, which is the moment the signed copies are swapped, and not from the day the buyer notices the gap. And the seller guidance says the right no longer applies once settlement has occurred. The same page words the right with care: the purchaser "may be entitled" to rescind, which signals that the outcome turns on the document and the facts.

Read together with Fair Trading's note that settlement usually takes place about 6 weeks after exchange, the picture is this. Six weeks is 42 days, so in a sale on the usual timetable the 14-day window closes well before settlement, at the end of the first third of the period. In a sale agreed with a very short settlement, it is settlement that may close the window first.

For a vendor, this is the reason the attachments are assembled before the campaign and not during it: a missing certificate leaves the buyer with a way out for two weeks after both sides thought the deal was done. For a buyer, it is a right with a short life, and one that depends on which document is missing.

Alongside the attachments, Fair Trading's general page for sellers states a broader duty: sellers must disclose known issues with the property, such as defects or encumbrances, and provide required certificates such as a valid swimming pool compliance certificate. One further rule concerns agents. When a prospective buyer asks for a contract of sale, the agent must tell them about previous property inspection reports that were commissioned. The disclosure of "material facts" by agents under the state's licensing law was not covered by the pages read, and is left out here.

Cooling off and the agent's part at exchange in NSW

The prescribed cooling-off statement in the contract describes a right that is separate from the 14-day rescission right. The two are easy to confuse because both start at exchange.

According to Fair Trading, a buyer of residential property in NSW has a cooling-off period of 5 business days. It starts on exchange and ends at 5pm on the fifth business day after the day of exchange. The regulator gives its own illustration: contracts exchanged at 10am on a Tuesday carry a cooling-off period that ends at 5pm on the Tuesday of the following week. For an off-the-plan contract the period is 10 business days, which Fair Trading explains by the size and complexity of those contracts.

Withdrawing has a price. A buyer who withdraws during the 5 business days must pay the vendor 0.25 per cent of the purchase price, which Fair Trading expresses as A$250 for every A$100,000. As a worked example, with a price chosen only for illustration: on a contract at A$900,000, 0.25 per cent comes to A$2,250, the same as nine lots of A$250. On a contract at A$1.2 million it comes to A$3,000. The pages read give no forfeiture figure for the 10-day off-the-plan period.

There are exceptions and adjustments. No cooling-off period applies to a property bought at auction, or to a contract exchanged on the same day as an auction at which the property was passed in. A buyer can waive the period by giving the vendor what Fair Trading calls a "66W certificate", and the period can be shortened or lengthened by written agreement with the vendor. The Fair Trading page describes the cooling-off period as the buyer's; it sets out no equivalent period for the vendor.

The agent's role around the contract is narrow, and Fair Trading draws its limits in three places:

• A real estate agent cannot change any part of the contract. Only the buyer's or the seller's solicitor or licensed conveyancer can, and a change made for the buyer has to be confirmed with the vendor's legal representative.
• An agent may not take part in exchanging or making the contract when the client has told the agent that a solicitor or conveyancer will act, or when the proposed contract shows one is acting, unless the client or that representative gives express authorisation.
• An agent who does arrange the exchange must give signed copies to each party, or to their solicitor or conveyancer, within 2 business days.

Victoria: the Section 32 statement

Victoria reaches the same goal with a different instrument. Consumer Affairs Victoria, on a page last updated 1 April 2026, describes the Section 32 statement as a document the seller must give the buyer before the property is sold. It is also called the vendor's statement, and it takes its everyday name from section 32 of the Sale of Land Act 1962. The regulator points to Part II, Division 2 of that Act for the provisions.

The core duty, as Consumer Affairs Victoria quotes it, has three parts. A vendor under a contract for the sale of land must give the purchaser a statement; the statement must be signed by the vendor; and it must be given before the purchaser signs the contract. It contains the matters, and attaches the documents, that the Division specifies. A second subsection allows the vendor to sign electronically.

The difference from NSW is one of trigger. The NSW rule bites when the property is first offered; the Victorian duty, as the regulator states it, is tied to the purchaser's signature. In practice the gap is small. Consumer Affairs Victoria says the statement is usually prepared by the seller's legal practitioner or conveyancer, signed by the seller, attached to the contract of sale and made available by the selling agent to prospective buyers before the sale or auction. Its guidance for buyers lists a copy of the Section 32 statement among the things a buyer can expect an estate agent to provide, together with a Statement of Information for the property. That second document has since been renamed: the regulator's page on understanding property prices, last updated 1 October 2026, says agents must now use the Property Price Statement, which replaces the Statement of Information.

As for content, the regulator summarises the statement as title information, including:

• mortgages;
• covenants;
• easements;
• zoning;
• outgoings, such as rates;
• a declaration if the property is in a bushfire-prone area.

That list opens with the word "including". The complete statutory list in the Act was not read for this guide, so the six items above are the regulator's summary and not the whole of what the law requires.

A vendor who sells without an agent is not released from any of this. Consumer Affairs Victoria says such a seller must still engage a conveyancer or legal practitioner to prepare the Section 32 statement and the contract of sale. The regulator also explains the two professions: a legal practitioner must hold a current practising certificate and can prepare or review all the sale documents and give general legal advice, while a conveyancer is a licensed non-lawyer who can prepare or review the statement and the contract and advise on the transfer of title.

What a Section 32 leaves out, and what an error costs

The statement is a title document, not a report on the building. Consumer Affairs Victoria's guidance for buyers, last updated 3 May 2021, names three things it does not cover: the condition of the buildings, whether the buildings comply with building regulations, and the accuracy of the measurements on the title.

Within its scope, the standard is strict. Consumer Affairs Victoria calls the statement a legal document that must be factually accurate and complete. If it contains incorrect or insufficient information, the buyer may be able to withdraw from the sale or take legal action against the seller.

The wording matters when the two states are compared. NSW Fair Trading attaches a number to its remedy: 14 days from exchange. The Victorian pages read for this guide give no period, and say only that the buyer "may be able" to withdraw. Whether a particular error is serious enough, and by when the buyer must act, is not something the regulator's summary answers. The regulator notes that a prospective buyer may have the statement checked by their own legal practitioner or conveyancer before buying.

Victoria adds one general-purpose document at the inspection stage. Consumer Affairs Victoria says sellers, or the agents acting for them, must make a due diligence checklist available to prospective buyers at open inspections.

Owners corporations and the age of a Victorian statement

When the property belongs to an owners corporation, the body once called a body corporate, the Section 32 statement grows. Consumer Affairs Victoria says the seller must include an owners corporation certificate and its accompanying documents in the statement.

The regulator then raises a point about time. Section 32 statements are sometimes prepared up to 12 months before the sale. A certificate that was accurate when the statement was drawn up may no longer describe the owners corporation when the buyer signs, or when the sale settles. Consumer Affairs Victoria's answer is addressed to buyers: request a new owners corporation certificate before settlement, or inspect the owners corporation's register and records. Viewing the register is free. Copies of documents are another matter, since the owners corporation can charge for them.

The comparison with NSW is close but not exact. A NSW strata buyer has the section 184 certificate, with the rule that a levy not shown on it is not the purchaser's responsibility. The Victorian pages read state no equivalent rule; they give the buyer a way to refresh the information, not a statement of who bears an undisclosed charge.

The Victorian contract and the taxes that stay with the seller

The Section 32 statement travels with the contract of sale but is a different document. According to Consumer Affairs Victoria, a buyer makes a formal offer by giving the seller a signed contract, and the property is sold once both parties have signed. The contract sets out the property details, the names of the seller and the buyer, the estate agent if one is used, each party's legal practitioner or conveyancer, the purchase price, the deposit paid, the balance owing at settlement and any special conditions, such as "subject to finance".

Two disclosure rules about money apply to that contract.

The first concerns GST. The contract must state clearly whether the purchase price includes or excludes GST and, where it is included, how the amount is calculated. The regulator's 2021 guidance for buyers adds that GST generally applies only to new homes and not to established ones, unless the seller is registered for GST.

The second concerns two state taxes. Before 2024, Consumer Affairs Victoria explains, a seller could agree in the contract to share land tax or windfall gains tax with the buyer. From 1 January 2024 a seller must not pass on windfall gains tax in a contract where the seller's liability was assessed before the contract was signed, and must not pass on land tax to the buyer where the sale price is under a threshold amount. For the year starting 1 January 2026 the threshold is A$10.7 million, and it is raised each year in line with inflation.

A worked example shows the reach of the land tax rule, with a price chosen only for illustration. A house sold in 2026 for A$950,000 is A$9.75 million under the A$10.7 million threshold, so the seller must not pass land tax on to the buyer in that contract. The ban covers every sale priced under the threshold; a sale at or above it is outside the ban as the regulator describes it. Consumer Affairs Victoria tells sellers who are unsure whether the rules apply to consult their legal practitioner or conveyancer.

The two regimes side by side

Seen together, the states differ less in purpose than in mechanics: NSW regulates the moment of marketing and names a fixed remedy, while Victoria regulates the moment of signing and leaves the remedy open.

For an agent working in either state, the common thread is that the paperwork belongs to the lawyers and conveyancers, and the agent's duty is to have it on hand: the draft contract at the office in NSW, a copy of the Section 32 statement for buyers in Victoria. For a vendor, both systems reward preparation before the first advertisement. For a buyer, both hand over the title's story early, and both leave questions that the regulators' summaries do not settle, which is why each regulator points buyers to their own solicitor, legal practitioner or conveyancer.

New South Wales gives its buyers a number of days. Victoria gives its vendors a standard: accurate and complete.

Kooky, from Shaka

Kooky edits Agents Estate and builds Shaka, the payment router he made for real estate professionals. One payment comes in, and every agent, agency and party in the deal receives their signed share on closing date.

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