If you are selling

Selling a property

You cannot market a home in New South Wales until a contract for sale exists and the required documents are attached to it. That is the first job, it is on your side of the table, and several of those documents take time to arrive.

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

Selling starts earlier than buying. A buyer can react to a contract; a vendor has to produce one, complete and correct, before an agent can put a sign up. The documents the legislation requires are issued by councils, authorities and the land register, each on its own timetable.

This page runs through the sequence from the decision to sell to the day the money arrives. Each section links to the page that goes further, and our residential sale page sets out the work in more detail.

Start the contract before you choose an agent

A residential property cannot be advertised or offered for sale in New South Wales until a contract of sale, prepared by an Australian legal practitioner or a licensed conveyancer, is available for it. Agents will ask for it before they list.

Starting it early is what stops the campaign waiting on you. Some of the documents that have to be attached come from the local council, some from the water authority and some from the land register, and none of them arrive the same day they are ordered.

There is a second reason to start early. Once you know what the title and the planning certificate actually say about your property, you know what a buyer’s lawyer is going to see. If there is a problem — an easement nobody mentioned, a notation on the certificate, building work with no approval — it is far better dealt with before the property is on the market than after a buyer has found it.

If you are buying as well as selling, 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 than afterwards.

What must be attached to the contract

Section 52A of the Conveyancing Act 1919 (NSW), with the Conveyancing (Sale of Land) Regulation 2022 (NSW), requires prescribed documents to be attached to the contract before the property is offered for sale. The Regulation sets out what they are, and which of them apply depends on the land.

In broad terms that covers the title to the land and the dealings recorded against it, the registered plan, a drainage diagram, and the planning certificate for the land under section 10.7 of the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act 1979 (NSW). The contract must also carry the statement of the purchaser’s cooling-off rights in the prescribed form. Where there is a swimming pool, a certificate or other evidence about it is generally required as well.

This is not a formality. Where a prescribed document is not attached, the purchaser may be entitled to rescind the contract within a period set by the legislation, running from exchange. A rescission at that stage arrives after you have taken the property off the market and possibly committed to a purchase of your own.

The title documents for the land, and the dealings recorded against the title
The registered plan
A drainage diagram
The section 10.7 planning certificate for the land
The statement of the purchaser's cooling-off rights, in the prescribed form
A certificate or other evidence for a swimming pool, where there is one
For an off-the-plan sale, the disclosure statement, the draft plan and the further documents the legislation requires

Swimming pool compliance is the item that most often delays a campaign. If there is a pool, raise it at the very beginning: the work to make one compliant can take weeks.

What you have to disclose

There are disclosure obligations in the legislation, and the contract itself carries warranties about specified matters. Beyond that, what must be said depends on the circumstances, so it is a question to ask about your own property rather than to guess at.

As a practical matter, a defect that is disclosed and priced is usually a better outcome than one that is found later. A buyer who discovers a problem after exchange has a grievance and sometimes a claim. A buyer who was told about it before exchange has a negotiation.

If you have carried out building work, alterations or an addition, gather the approvals and certificates for it now. Whether the work was approved is one of the first things a careful buyer’s lawyer asks about, and the answer is much easier to produce than to explain the absence of.

The agent, and what the agency agreement commits you to

The agency agreement is a contract between you and the agent, separate from the contract for sale, and it is worth reading before you sign it. It sets the commission, the term, the marketing costs you are committing to and the circumstances in which commission is payable.

Agents are licensed and regulated in New South Wales, and you can check a licence through the NSW Government’s property professionals pages. The rules about how a property may be advertised, including underquoting, apply to the agent rather than to you, but a campaign that breaches them is your campaign.

The method of sale is a commercial decision. Auction gives certainty on the day and removes the buyer’s cooling-off period. Private treaty is slower and gives you room to negotiate terms as well as price.

The buyer's amendments

Expect the purchaser’s lawyer to come back with requested changes to the contract. That is ordinary and it is not a sign of trouble.

Some requests are routine. Some move a real risk from the buyer to you — extending a warranty, accepting responsibility for something after settlement, allowing a longer period for something to be satisfied. A few are worth refusing outright.

The work is deciding which is which and what each one would cost you, and then telling you plainly so the decision is yours. A vendor who agrees to everything to keep a buyer interested often pays for it at settlement.

Exchange, the deposit and cooling off

At exchange the two signed counterparts are swapped and the deposit is paid, usually to the agent as stakeholder. From that moment you are bound. The buyer may not be, because a cooling-off period generally applies to a residential purchase unless the sale was by auction or the right has been waived.

That asymmetry is why vendors are often advised to ask a purchaser for a certificate under section 66W of the Conveyancing Act 1919 (NSW), which waives the cooling-off period. It is a negotiating position rather than a requirement, and insisting on it can narrow your field of buyers. Whether to ask is a commercial decision.

Waiver does not shorten your own obligations. The prescribed documents still have to have been attached, and the prescribed statement of cooling-off rights still has to be in the contract.

Our guide to cooling off, and when there is none explains the mechanism from both sides.

Settlement, discharge and what you receive

If there is a mortgage on the property it has to be discharged at settlement, and your lender needs notice to prepare for it. Start that early: banks work to their own timetable and a discharge that is not ready can delay settlement and expose you to a claim for the delay.

Settlement is completed electronically. On the day the purchase money is applied, your lender is paid out, the agent accounts to you for the deposit less commission, and the transfer is lodged.

What you receive is the price, less the deposit already held, less the amount required to discharge the mortgage, less the agent’s commission and the costs of the sale, and adjusted for rates, water and other outgoings to the settlement date. Those adjustment figures should be sent to you before the day and explained.

Leave the property in the condition the contract requires and remove everything that is not an inclusion. The purchaser’s final inspection happens shortly before settlement, and a dispute at that point delays everybody’s money.

Start the contract

Send the property address and your rates notice and the contract can be started. If you have chosen an agent, or you have a date you need to be on the market by, say so.

Enquiries

Through the form on our contact page.

Phone

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Costs

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