If you are buying

Buying a property

The contract was written by the seller’s side. Nearly everything in it can be changed before you sign and almost nothing after. This page sets out the order a purchase actually happens in, and where the decisions that cannot be undone sit.

General information, not legal advice. This page sets out how the law generally applies. It does not take account of your circumstances, and you should get advice about your own situation before acting on it. The official sources this page is written from are listed on it; where they differ from anything here, they are the authority.

Last updated: 23 September 2026

A conveyance is a series of dated steps. Missing one costs money, and a few of them cannot be undone. The steps are not complicated, but they arrive from different people in an order nobody explains, and the ones that matter most look like paperwork.

This page runs through them from the first inspection to the keys. Each section links to the page or guide that goes further. If you are buying your first home, first home buyers covers the same ground with more of the assumptions removed.

Before you look seriously

Two things are worth settling before you fall in love with a property.

The first is finance. Know what you can borrow and on what conditions. Pre-approval is your lender’s indication, usually subject to conditions and to a valuation of whichever property you choose. It is not a promise to lend. The difference becomes very important at exchange.

The second is the total cost. The price is not the cost. Transfer duty is assessed by Revenue NSW and is usually the largest single addition, and lenders generally do not advance it. Add the legal costs, the searches and certificates, a building and pest inspection, a strata report for a unit, and your lender’s own fees. Work that total out before you decide what you can bid, using the Revenue NSW calculator for the duty.

What you can borrow, and whether approval is conditional
The duty figure for the price range you are looking in
The cost of inspections and reports for the type of property
The legal costs, quoted in writing
The cash you need at exchange for the deposit, and at or before settlement for duty

A purchase that works on the price and fails on the duty is a purchase that should have been priced differently. Do this arithmetic early.

Get the contract, early

A residential property cannot be marketed in New South Wales until a contract of sale has been prepared for it. So a contract exists from the day the sign goes up, and you do not need permission to ask for it.

Ask the agent for it the first time you are serious about a property, and send it for review before you make an offer rather than after. A review done before an offer is worth a great deal. The same review done after exchange tells you what you have already agreed to.

The agent cannot change the contract for you. Only your legal representative can request changes, and the vendor’s representative decides whether to agree. That exchange of requested amendments is ordinary and it happens before exchange.

Our guide to what a contract review actually checks sets out what is read for, including the documents the law requires to be attached and what the section 10.7 planning certificate discloses about the land.

Inspections, and the reports that go with them

A contract review reads a document. It cannot tell you that the retaining wall is failing or that there are termites in the subfloor. A building and pest inspection does that, and it is separate work by a separate professional. Neither substitutes for the other and you want both.

For a unit or a townhouse in a scheme, add a strata report. It is a report on the owners corporation’s own records: the minutes, the financial statements, the levies, the insurance, the capital works plan and any dispute or defect on foot. It is the cheapest protection available in a unit purchase and it should be read before you bid. Our page on strata purchases sets out what it should be read for.

If you are buying at auction, all of this has to be finished before the auction. There is no going back afterwards.

Making an offer, or bidding

On a private treaty sale you make an offer through the agent. An accepted offer is not a contract. In New South Wales the binding point is exchange, which is why a property can still be sold to somebody else after your offer has been accepted. That is frustrating and it is lawful.

At an auction the rules are different and tighter. You register with the vendor’s agent to bid. If you are the highest bidder you sign and exchange on the spot and you pay the deposit then. There is no cooling-off period, and the same applies where a property is passed in and contracts are exchanged the same day.

So the auction is the finishing line, not the starting one. Contract reviewed, finance finalised, inspections done, duty figure known, limit set before you arrive.

Set your limit before the auction and write it down. The whole design of an auction is to move people past the number they arrived with.

Exchange, the deposit and cooling off

Exchange is the moment it becomes real. Two signed counterparts are swapped, the deposit is paid and both sides are bound, subject to whatever cooling-off right applies. The deposit amount is set by the contract and is usually held by the agent as stakeholder.

A cooling-off period applies to many residential purchases, but not to a purchase at auction, and it can be waived by a certificate under section 66W of the Conveyancing Act 1919 (NSW). Vendors ask for that certificate frequently. Using a cooling-off right is also not free: a proportion of the purchase price is forfeited to the vendor. The period and the proportion are set by the legislation.

If you do have a cooling-off period, treat it as working time. Finance first, then the inspections, then anything outstanding in the contract. It is short.

Our guide to cooling off, and when there is none explains when the period applies, what a section 66W certificate gives up, and why this site does not print the number of days.

Between exchange and settlement

This is the quiet stretch, and most of it happens without you. Searches and certificates are ordered, your lender is dealt with, transfer duty is attended to with Revenue NSW, and the transfer documents are prepared for electronic lodgement.

Your job in this period is to keep your finance on track and to answer requests promptly. Lenders ask for documents at inconvenient moments, and a delay in producing one can push a settlement date.

You should be told what has happened and what is next. If you have not heard for a while, ask. A progress report needs no reason.

Settlement, and the keys

Property settlements in New South Wales are completed electronically. On the day, your lender’s funds and your own are applied, the balance is paid to the vendor and to whoever is discharging a mortgage, and the transfer is lodged. Title and money move together.

Before the day, the adjustment figures are checked. Rates, water and other outgoings are split between vendor and purchaser at the settlement date, and levies are apportioned as well in a strata purchase. Those figures should be sent to you and explained rather than simply applied.

Do your final inspection before settlement, not after it. It is the last point at which something being wrong with the property is a question rather than a problem. Check that what was included is still there, that the property is in the condition the contract requires and that anything the vendor agreed to do has been done.

The keys are released on settlement. If you are moving the same day, book the removalists for the afternoon rather than the morning — settlements can be delayed by an hour or two for reasons that have nothing to do with you.

The parts people wish they had known earlier

A short list, drawn from the questions that arrive too late.

Whose names go on the title. It affects duty, it affects what happens if circumstances change, and changing it later can be a second dutiable transaction. Decide before exchange.
Pre-approval is not approval. If the contract is not conditional on finance, you are bound to complete whether or not the money arrives.
The car space may not be yours. In a strata purchase it may be part of the lot, common property, or common property you have exclusive use of. The registered plan answers it, not the agent.
The planning certificate is about the land, not the building. Whether the deck or the converted garage was ever approved is a separate question.
What the agent said is not in the contract. If something is to be included, repaired or left behind, it goes in the document.

Send us the contract

If an agent has given you a contract for sale, send it through with the property address and the auction date if there is one. Keep the first message short.

Enquiries

Through the form on our contact page.

Phone

(02) 8806 0866

[email protected]

Costs

No figures are published on this website. Our quote page sets out what to send and what a written quote should cover.