Selling a home in Victoria: the owner's steps from agent to settlement

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Kooky

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An owner who sells a home in Victoria signs three documents, in an order that matters. The first is the sales authority that appoints an estate agent. The second is the section 32 statement, which describes the title and carries the vendor's own signature. The third is the contract of sale, signed after the buyer has signed it. Between them sit decisions that only the owner can take: the method of sale, the lowest price that will be accepted, which offers are worth hearing and what happens to the deposit before settlement.

This guide follows those steps from the owner's side, as Consumer Affairs Victoria, the state's consumer regulator, sets them out on its pages for sellers and for estate agents. It describes the position as read in October 2026, a month in which several rules changed: a seller's reserve price now has to be published before an auction, the Statement of Information has become the Property Price Statement, and sold prices are published. Further changes are scheduled for 2027 and are set out at the end, as the regulator states them.

Everything here is Victorian and concerns residential property. The pages describe general rules; how they apply to one sale depends on the property, the authority and the contract.

Consumer Affairs Victoria: pages on sales method and price (updated 1 October 2026) and on property deposits for sellers (updated 7 May 2021).

Who an owner works with, and in what order

Consumer Affairs Victoria says most sales go through an estate agent or an agent's representative, but that an owner can sell without one. Whichever route is taken, a second professional is involved. Conveyancing, which the regulator defines as the transfer of ownership of a property from seller to buyer, is usually handled by a legal practitioner or a conveyancer on each side.

The two are not the same. According to the regulator's page on conveyancing for sellers, updated on 1 April 2026, a legal practitioner must hold a current practising certificate, can prepare or review all the documents of a sale and can give general legal advice. A conveyancer is a person other than a legal practitioner who is licensed to do conveyancing work and to give legal advice about the transfer of title, and can prepare or review the section 32 statement and the contract of sale. The regulator keeps a public register of licensed conveyancers, and another of licensed estate agents.

An owner may also do the conveyancing personally. The regulator does not forbid it; it points out that the owner then has no practitioner's indemnity insurance behind the work if something goes wrong.

The regulator's selling checklist, a list of sixteen items last updated on 10 April 2021, puts the work in an order in which the legal representative is chosen before the authority is signed.

For an owner selling without an agent, the regulator lists six tasks that fall to the owner instead: deciding the price or range, advertising, negotiating, obtaining a deposit, providing the contract with the section 32 statement attached and arranging its signature, and handling settlement. A conveyancer or legal practitioner is still needed to prepare the section 32 statement and the contract.

Appointing an agent: what the signature commits

An agent in Victoria must be licensed, or be an agent's representative holding written authority from a licensed agent. The regulator's advice on choosing one is practical: meet several, ask for quotes in writing, ask for appraisals with their justification, and do not choose on the highest estimate alone.

The appointment is made by the sales authority, which Consumer Affairs Victoria describes as a legally binding contract setting out the whole agreement with the agent: the method of sale, the commission and marketing expenses, the agent's estimate of the selling price and the authority period.

Three points on that page decide how free the owner remains afterwards. There is no cooling-off period: once the authority is signed it cannot be cancelled during its period unless the agent agrees. The type of authority fixes who is paid: under an exclusive authority, which the regulator calls the most common, commission is payable when the property sells even if the owner finds the buyer, while a general authority lets several agencies list the home and pays only the one that sells it. And the period has a default where an exclusive authority states none, which the page gives as 30 days after the auction date, or 60 days after signing for a private sale.

Once appointed, the agent must act in the owner's best interests and follow lawful instructions. The page lists what a seller can expect: advice on the method of sale, a marketing plan, organised inspections, the signing of the contract, and the collection and holding of the full deposit.

Three prices: the estimate, the asking price, the advertised price

A Victorian sale runs on three different prices, and the regulator keeps them apart.

The first belongs to the agent. The estimated selling price must be reasonable and must take into account the sale prices of the three most comparable properties, according to the regulator's guidance to agents, updated on 1 October 2026. In metropolitan Melbourne a comparable property is one sold within the last 6 months and within 2 kilometres; elsewhere in Victoria the limits are 18 months and 5 kilometres. The estimate is written into the authority as one figure or as a range of up to 10 per cent; the regulator's example of such a range is A$500,000 to A$550,000.

The regulator's page for sellers is careful about what the estimate is not. It is not a valuation, not a guaranteed price, and it need not match the owner's reserve or asking price. Deliberately inflating it to win the listing is illegal, as is misleading the owner about it. If the estimate stops being reasonable during the campaign, the agent must tell the owner in writing and update the authority and the advertising.

The second price belongs to the owner. The regulator defines it as the lowest price the owner will accept, called the asking price in a private sale and the reserve price at auction. An owner can give an asking price in writing when signing the authority. The guidance to agents adds that an owner can also indicate a price by rejecting an offer.

The third is the advertised price, and it is tied to the other two. An agent cannot advertise below the estimate, below the owner's asking or reserve price, or below a written offer the owner has rejected as too low; doing so is underquoting. Advertising a price at all is not compulsory, the sellers' page notes. Where one is shown it is a single figure or a range of up to 10 per cent, with no qualifying words or symbols such as "offers above", "from" or a plus sign. The regulator says the agent will generally ask the owner to approve the advertised price and to confirm in writing that offers at or within it will be considered.

A rejected offer therefore has consequences for the owner's own campaign. When a written offer is refused as too low, online advertising below it must be removed or updated within one business day and other advertising as soon as practicable. No update is needed where the offer was refused for another reason, such as unacceptable terms. The regulator states the risk to agents as a penalty of more than A$50,000, which it gives as 240 penalty units.

Private sale, fixed-date sale or auction

The regulator's page on sales method and price, updated on 1 October 2026, describes three methods. The agent recommends one according to the type and location of the property, market conditions, the owner's timeframe and the owner's preference; the choice is recorded in the authority.

The regulator gives the auction one possible advantage for an owner, a better chance of selling by a specific date, and names its costs and limits: additional costs such as the auctioneer's fee, no guarantee of a sale, and a contract without conditions or cooling off. In a private sale a condition applies only if the owner approves it.

An auction also brings rules that bind the owner personally. According to the regulator's auction page, only the auctioneer can make a vendor bid, which must be announced when it is made. Dummy bids are illegal; the page adds that a co-owner may bid genuinely from the crowd, not through the auctioneer. If bidding stops below the reserve the property is passed in, and the highest bidder has the first right to negotiate with the owner.

The reserve price, now published in advance

For auctions and fixed-date sales held on or from 16 October 2026, Consumer Affairs Victoria says the agent must publish the seller's reserve price at least 7 days beforehand, and the sale cannot go ahead unless the reserve has been published for the full 7 days.

The procedure starts with the agent and ends with the owner's signature. The agent must ask for the reserve in writing, and the request must contain a proposed reserve with the reasons for it, a note that the reserve has to be a single dollar amount with no extra words or symbols, and an explanation of how the owner can respond. The owner then has three choices: accept the proposed figure with signed confirmation, ask for another proposal, or set a different reserve with signed confirmation.

Once the reserve is set, the regulator says it must appear in any advertisement, marketing material must be updated and outdated advertising withdrawn immediately. It replaces the indicative selling price as the advertised price, and it is added to the Property Price Statement beside that indicative price.

Two details matter to an owner who receives an offer before auction day. An offer may be accepted before the 7 days have run, provided the reserve had already been published when the offer arrived. And if a written offer is rejected as too low after the reserve is public, the indicative price is updated but the reserve changes only if the owner wishes. The regulator adds that a buyer whose offer is accepted less than three clear business days before the auction has no cooling-off period.

The section 32 statement: prepared early, signed by the vendor

The vendor's statement takes its name from section 32 of the Sale of Land Act 1962, in Part II, Division 2. Consumer Affairs Victoria quotes the duty: the vendor must give the purchaser, before the purchaser signs the contract, a statement signed by the vendor. It is usually prepared by the owner's legal practitioner or conveyancer, the selling agent usually makes it available to prospective buyers before the sale or auction, and electronic signatures are permitted.

The regulator summarises its content as information about the title: mortgages, covenants, easements, zoning, outgoings such as rates, and a declaration if the property is in a bushfire-prone area. The Act specifies the matters to be stated and the documents to be attached.

The signature is the owner's, not the preparer's, which is why the facts supplied to the legal practitioner or conveyancer matter. The regulator's wording, "may be able", leaves the outcome to the facts of each case, and its page gives no time limit.

Two points concern timing. The page says a section 32 statement can be prepared up to 12 months before the sale. And an owner selling a home in an owners corporation, formerly called a body corporate, must include an owners corporation certificate and its accompanying documents. Because of the 12-month point, the regulator tells buyers either to ask for a new certificate before settlement or to inspect the owners corporation's register and records.

One more document is the owner's responsibility on inspection days. Sellers, or the agents acting for them, must make the regulator's due diligence checklist available to prospective buyers at open inspections.

The Property Price Statement and the published sold price

From 1 October 2026 the agent must prepare a Property Price Statement, which replaces the Statement of Information, for every residential property the agent is engaged to sell. It is the agent's document, not the vendor's. According to the regulator's guidance to agents it shows an indicative selling price, the property's key features, the most comparable sales, the median price for that type of property in the suburb and, for an auction or fixed-date sale, the reserve once the agent has received it.

The part that concerns an owner most comes after the sale. The sale price must be added within 7 days of the sale becoming unconditional, and the statement then stays public for at least 18 months unless an exemption is granted. The regulator says the rule applies to sales that become unconditional on or after 1 October 2026, even where the contract was signed earlier.

Two limits are stated. The regulator provides for exemptions in cases of family violence or personal violence, on application to the Director of Consumer Affairs Victoria. The guidance to agents also records an exception where the agent's written engagement was signed before 1 October 2026 and contains a term that the sale price must not be disclosed.

Handling offers and signing the contract

The agent must tell the owner of all verbal and written offers unless the owner has instructed otherwise in writing. Where such an instruction exists, the agent has to tell prospective buyers that their offers will not be passed on.

The regulator's private sale page, updated on 9 September 2022, describes how offers behave. They may be verbal or written, and a verbal offer has to be followed up in writing in the contract of sale. A buyer can withdraw an offer at any time before the owner accepts it, and can write into the contract a date after which it lapses. Offers may carry conditions; the page names finance, the sale of the buyer's existing property and a satisfactory building or other inspection. With several offers in hand, the agent negotiates between the parties to obtain the highest price.

The property is sold when both parties have signed the contract of sale; the buyer signs to offer and the owner signs to accept, and every party who signs receives a copy. The contract is prepared by a legal practitioner or a conveyancer. The private sale page adds that an agent can complete the contract details before the parties sign. According to the regulator the contract holds the property details, the names of the seller and the buyer, the agent's name where one is used, the details of each side's legal practitioner or conveyancer, the price, the deposit paid, the balance owing at settlement and any special conditions. It must state clearly whether the price includes GST and, if so, how the amount is calculated. The items that stay with the home or leave with the owner should be listed, since the regulator notes that ownership may otherwise be hard to determine at settlement.

One limit on what an owner may write into the contract dates from 1 January 2024. The conveyancing page says a seller must not pass on land tax to the buyer where the sale price is under a threshold, set at A$10,700,000 for the year starting 1 January 2026 and indexed annually, and must not pass on windfall gains tax where the liability was assessed before the contract was signed.

A signed private sale is not yet certain. For residential and small rural properties the buyer has three clear business days of cooling off, counted from the buyer's signature and not the owner's. A buyer who withdraws is refunded everything paid less the greater of A$100 or 0.2 per cent of the price, and the owner keeps that amount. As a worked example, on a contract at A$900,000 the owner would keep A$1,800.

The deposit and its early release

No law sets the amount of a deposit, the regulator says; it is usually 10 per cent of the price and may be paid in full or in part, with the balance due by a date stated in the contract. Where an agent manages the sale the agent holds it in trust until settlement, or transfers it to the trust account of a conveyancer or legal practitioner. An owner selling without an agent must pass it to their legal practitioner or conveyancer, or place it in a special purpose account, in the names of both buyer and seller, at an authorised deposit-taking institution in Victoria. Until the contract is signed by both sides the home stays on the market, and a deposit is refundable if the contract's conditions are not met.

An owner who needs the money before settlement, for a deposit on the next home for instance, can ask for early release. The regulator's page on deposits for sellers, last updated on 7 May 2021, sets three conditions. The contract must be unconditional. The owner must give the buyer evidence, to the buyer's satisfaction, either that no debts are secured against the property or that the total of secured debts does not exceed 80 per cent of the sale price. And the buyer cannot release the deposit until at least 28 days after the contract is signed. The page says the proof of debts is usually attached to the contract of sale. It cites no Act or section for these conditions.

A worked example, with illustrative figures, shows the arithmetic. On a sale at A$900,000, 80 per cent of the price is A$720,000. An owner with a mortgage of A$650,000 secured on the home is under that ceiling; an owner owing A$750,000 is over it, and the condition is not met. A deposit at the usual 10 per cent would be A$90,000.

Commission is linked to the deposit as things stand. The regulator's page on agents says that at settlement the agent deducts the commission from the deposit, pays the owner the balance and provides an account. The owner then has 28 days from receiving that account to complain to the regulator about the commission, or may apply to the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal.

Settlement, and what happens if the home does not sell

Settlement is the day the sale is finalised: the checks are complete, title and transfer documents are exchanged and the balance of the price is paid. The regulator's settlement page, updated on 8 April 2026, says it is usually conducted between the legal practitioners or conveyancers of each side and the lenders, and that the buyer collects the keys from the agent once it is complete.

On the length of the wait, the regulator's pages read slightly differently. The settlement page says the seller sets the date in the contract and that the period is usually 30 to 90 days. The private sale page says it is usually 30, 60 or 90 days and that another period can be negotiated with the buyer. The checklist tells owners to settle the time for settlement in advance with their agent, conveyancer or legal practitioner.

Outgoings are adjusted on the day. The seller is responsible for rates up to and including the day of settlement and the buyer from the day after. Land transfer duty is the buyer's cost, and the transfer of land is usually lodged with Land Use Victoria by the buyer's side.

Not every campaign ends in a sale. After an auction where the home is passed in and not then sold to the highest bidder, the regulator says the owner generally pays the marketing expenses and the auctioneer's fee but not the agent's commission. Its private sale page says the owner must pay the marketing expenses but not the commission, while its page on agents says those costs may be owed unless the authority is "no sale, no fee"; the authority's own wording settles the point. For both methods the regulator advises checking the termination date of the authority before approaching another agent.

What changes in 2027

Consumer Affairs Victoria's summary of the changes to property sales and underquoting laws, updated on 1 October 2026, lists three further dates. The page names no Act and gives no penalty amounts, and none are supplied here.

The first change moves the vendor's statement forward in the campaign; today the duty is to give it before the purchaser signs. One case keeps that timing: for a property that is not advertised, or one sold within 14 days of being advertised, the statement must be available before the purchaser signs the contract.

The second replaces the early release conditions described above, the 80 per cent ceiling and the 28 days among them, with agreement between the parties written into the contract. The regulator's deposits page dates from 2021 and does not yet mention the repeal; until 1 July 2027 it describes the process in force. On the third, the regulator notes that sellers may still choose to pay commission before settlement or rescission.

In a Victorian sale the agent proposes and advertises, but the reserve, the section 32 statement and the contract each carry the owner's signature.

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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