How it works

From your contract to settlement

What happens once you make contact, in the order it happens: what to send, how a quote is arrived at, and what each stage of a conveyance involves.

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

Most people who make contact are part way into something already. An agent has handed over a contract, an auction is on Saturday, or a property has been listed and the paperwork has to be ready. This page sets out what an engagement involves, so you know what you are agreeing to before you agree to it.

My Conveyancing Lawyer is an informational website about conveyancing and property transactions in New South Wales. Much of what follows is set by the Legal Profession Uniform Law and the conduct rules for solicitors in this State, and about sets out what this website is and where the legal services offered through it come from.

The first conversation

We start with where you are up to: whether you are buying or selling, what property it is, whether there is a contract yet, and whether any date is already running.

If a date is running, say so at the very start rather than waiting for an appointment. A cooling-off period, an auction on the weekend, a settlement date in a contract you have already exchanged, or a notice from a developer all change the order in which everything else happens.

You do not need your documents organised. Send what you have.

The contract for sale, in full, including the annexures at the back
The address of the property, and whether it is a house, a unit, a townhouse or land
Whether the sale is by private treaty or auction, and the auction date
Whether you have exchanged, and if so on what date
Your lender or broker, and whether finance is pre-approved or formally approved
The full legal names of everyone who will be on the title
Any notice you have received from the vendor, the purchaser or a developer, and the date it arrived

If you are bidding at auction, the preparation has to be finished before the auction. There is no cooling-off period on an auction purchase — see cooling off, and when there is none.

The conflict check

Before a law practice can act for you it has to check whether it is able to. It cannot act where its duty to you would conflict with a duty owed to another client or with its own interests. In property that comes up more often than people expect, because both sides of a transaction, a developer and a purchaser, or two members of the same family can all end up in the same office.

So expect to be asked who else is involved, and asked early. Usually nothing turns on it. Where a conflict does exist you should be told, and told what the options are. What you say during that check is confidential whether or not you go on to engage the practice.

Please do not send the full detail of your matter, or a bundle of documents, before the conflict check is done. The contract and a short summary are enough to start.

The quote, before any work begins

Conveyancing is one of the few areas of legal work where a reliable quote can usually be given up front, because the steps are known. What changes the figure is the property, the contract and whether anything unusual is attached to it.

Under the Legal Profession Uniform Law a law practice must tell you in writing, at the outset, how its legal costs will be calculated and what it estimates the total will be, and the disclosure has to set out your rights as well. A costs agreement is a separate document, and you do not have to sign one the day it is put in front of you.

No figures appear on this website. A quote given without your contract in front of us would be a guess, and a published price would be a guess dressed up as a fact. Our quote page sets out what to send and what a written quote should cover.

Ask for disbursements to be identified separately from professional fees. Searches, certificates, the electronic settlement fee and transfer duty are not the same thing as somebody’s time, and they should not be presented as one number.

If you are buying: before you sign

This is where the value is. The contract is read in full, including the special conditions at the back, and checked against what the Conveyancing Act 1919 (NSW) and the Conveyancing (Sale of Land) Regulation 2022 (NSW) require to be attached.

You are then told what the contract does to you in plain words: what the settlement period commits you to, what happens if your finance does not come through, what the deposit is at risk for, and what the section 10.7 planning certificate discloses about the land.

Anything worth changing is raised with the vendor’s representative as requested amendments. Some are agreed, some are refused. That negotiation happens before exchange, because after exchange there is very little left to negotiate. Our guide to what a contract review actually checks sets out the whole list.

If you are selling: before it goes to market

A residential property cannot be marketed in New South Wales until a contract of sale has been prepared for it. So the first job is the contract, and the documents the legislation requires to be attached to it.

Several of those documents are issued by councils, authorities and the register on their own timetable, so they are ordered at the start. A sale campaign that waits a fortnight for a certificate has lost momentum for no good reason.

Then come the buyer’s requested amendments, which arrive as a matter of course. Some are ordinary, some shift real risk onto you, and a few are worth refusing. Our page on residential sale sets out the sequence.

If you are selling and buying at the same time, say so at the start. The two settlement dates have to be drafted to work together, and that is much easier to arrange before either contract is signed.

Exchange, and the period after it

Exchange is the moment the contract becomes binding. Two signed counterparts are swapped, the deposit is paid and both sides are committed, subject to whatever cooling-off right applies.

If a cooling-off period applies, it is short and it is working time rather than thinking time: finance finalised, the building and pest inspection completed, the strata report read. If you are asked to waive it by a certificate under section 66W of the Conveyancing Act 1919 (NSW), that is a decision to make with advice rather than at the agent’s desk.

After that the file runs quietly for a while. Searches and certificates are ordered, your lender is dealt with, transfer duty is attended to with Revenue NSW, and the transfer documents are prepared. 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

Property settlements in New South Wales are completed electronically, which is why a solicitor or licensed conveyancer has to be involved on each side. On the day, funds move and the transfer is lodged at the same time, so title and money change hands together.

Before the day the adjustment figures are checked. Rates, water and any 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.

For a buyer, settlement is when the keys are released and the property becomes yours. For a seller, it is when the balance of the price arrives and any mortgage is discharged. The registration of the transfer follows, and the title record is updated.

Arrange your final inspection before settlement, not after it. It is the last point at which something being wrong with the property is still a question rather than a problem.

What we will not do

Three things, whatever you ask.

Guarantee an outcome. A vendor can refuse an amendment, a lender can decline, a valuation can come in low and a development can be delayed. Anyone who promises you a result is telling you something they cannot know.
Tell you a contract is fine when it is not. A solicitor's duty is to advise you on the best course open to you. That includes saying when a contract carries a risk you should not accept, or when a purchase should not proceed at the price, and giving the reasons. You may still decide to proceed. What matters is that the decision is yours and informed.
Publish a figure we cannot stand behind. No duty rate, no cooling-off period in days, no threshold and no fee appears on this website. Each of those is set outside it and changed from time to time, and a stale number on a page somebody relies on is the worst thing a site like this could produce.

If something in the transaction is going wrong, you should hear it from us early rather than work it out from the correspondence. A problem raised a fortnight before settlement usually has a solution. The same problem raised the day before often does not.

Who does the work, and how you are kept informed

Ask who has carriage of your file and who to contact about it. You are entitled to know, and it is a reasonable question to ask before you engage anybody.

A solicitor’s duty is to keep you informed about the progress of your matter, in writing where that is practical. So expect to be told when the contract was exchanged, what searches have come back, what the adjustment figures are and when settlement is booked.

You can check that anyone advising you holds a current practising certificate on the Law Society of NSW’s Register of Solicitors. Do that for any lawyer you are considering, including the one you find through this website.

If you are not happy

Say so early. Most problems are about what was expected rather than what was done, and they are easier to fix at the time. Our complaints page sets out how to raise one and who provides the legal services offered through this website. A complaint about a solicitor, or a dispute about a bill, can also go to the Office of the NSW Legal Services Commissioner, which is independent of the practice.

How to make contact

Use the enquiry form on the contact page. Keep a first message short: which property, whether you are buying or selling, and any date that is already running.

Enquiries

Through the form on our contact page.

Phone

(02) 8806 0866

[email protected]

Who you are contacting

My Conveyancing Lawyer is an informational website about conveyancing in New South Wales. About sets out what this website is, and our terms of use set out who provides the legal services offered through it.