In Focus

Reading an ACT contract for sale

An ACT contract for sale of residential property is a bundle, not a single signature page. The front sets out the parties, the price and the property — often by block, section and division, and by street address. Behind it you should expect the Crown lease, plans, inquiries, an energy rating, and, for a unit, the units plan and a unit title sale certificate. Mei’s note walks through how a first-home reader can find those pieces without pretending to be the lawyer who will advise on them.

Read with a pencil. Circle dates, names and anything that says “included” or “excluded”. Do not circle a clause and decide you have amended the contract. Amendments are a formal step. Your pencil is for the meeting with your conveyancer.

• Match the names of the buyers to the names you intend to put on the transfer.
• Match the land description: block, section, division, and unit or units plan if there is one.
• Find the price, the deposit wording, and the completion date. Write them on one line in your notes.
• Find the inclusions schedule and compare it with what you saw on site.
• Find the Crown lease and read the purpose clause and the term.
• Find the Lease Conveyancing Inquiry and the date on it.
• Find the Energy Efficiency Rating statement.
• If it is a unit, find the registered units plan and the unit title sale certificate, and read the date on the certificate.
• Read the cooling-off wording and whether any exception is ticked or obvious, such as an auction.
• List special conditions in plain language. Ask what each one requires you to do, and by when.
• Do not sign a section 17 certificate because a deadline feels uncomfortable. That certificate has its own guide.
• Hand the marked bundle to a conveyancer who does not act for the seller.

The pages a first reader can actually find

Start at the schedule. It is the page people photograph. It should carry the property, the price and the parties. If a name is a nickname or a company you have not discussed, stop and ask. Buying in a name that does not match your finance conversation creates a mess at completion. This guide does not tell you which name is wiser for tax or for a lender. It tells you to notice if the draft in front of you is not the draft you think you agreed.

The deposit clause tells you how much is payable, to whom, and when. Do not treat a percentage you heard at a barbecue as the clause. Read the number that is written. If it is blank, it is not agreed. The completion date is the day the balance is due and keys are usually organised. In many ACT forms that day is called completion rather than settlement. Put it in your calendar in pencil until your conveyancer says the date is the one in the exchanged contract.

Inclusions and exclusions sit near the commercial heart of a house sale and are oddly easy to rush. A dishwasher can be on the plan in the brochure and excluded in the schedule. A shed can feel permanent and be a tenant’s. Write mismatches down. Your conveyancer can ask for a special condition or for the schedule to be corrected before exchange. After exchange, you are arguing about a contract, not about a memory of a kitchen.

The Crown lease inside the bundle

Canberra residential land is leasehold. The Crown lease in the bundle is the document that says how that block may be used, for how long, and on what rent terms. Read the purpose. A lease that says residential is a different thing from a lease that allows a home business only within limits, or that restricts the number of dwellings. If you saw a flat downstairs and the purpose reads as a single dwelling, that is a question, not a bonus.

Read the commencement and the term. Many residential leases run for a long term measured in decades, often discussed as 99 years, but the only term that matters is the one printed on the lease you are buying. Also read any clause about rent. Some leases reserve a rent that has been dealt with over time. Others still show an obligation. Outstanding rent, if the Territory has recorded it, is the sort of item a Lease Conveyancing Inquiry is meant to surface. Do not invent a rent figure from a neighbour’s story.

The inquiry documents and the building file documents are there so you are not buying a storey that was never approved, or a lease already in breach. You will not become an expert by one reading. You can become the client who asks a precise question: “The inquiry is dated in March and we are now in October. Do you want a new one?” That question is worth more than a highlighter on every page.

Cooling-off, auction, and special conditions

For many private treaties of residential property, the Civil Law (Sale of Residential Property) Act 2003 (ACT) provides a cooling-off period. The current text of the Act describes that period as beginning when the contract is made and ending at 5 pm on the fifth working day, with a right to rescind and a forfeiture described in the Act as 0.25 per cent of the price. There are exceptions. The Act says there is no cooling-off period if the buyer is a corporation, if the property is sold by tender, if it is sold by auction, if the contract is made on the same day as a passed-in auction and the buyer was on the bidders record, or if the buyer waives the period under the Act. A provision that shortens the period has its own requirements, including a lawyer’s certificate. Confirm the consolidated Act with your lawyer. Amendments happen, and a blog should not be your statute book. This paragraph is a map of the headings, not a certificate.

Special conditions are where deadlines hide. A finance date, a building report date, or a condition about a development application can oblige you to act, or can protect you only if you follow the notice clause exactly. Ask, for each condition: who must do what, by which clock, and what happens if they do not. If there is no finance condition, say that out loud. Absence is a fact. It means you should not tell yourself the contract waits for a lender.

A section 17 certificate is the lawyer’s certificate used when a buyer waives cooling-off, or when a shortening of the period needs that form. It is signed by a lawyer who is not acting for the seller. It is not a form this website can give you. If an agent asks for one so exchange can happen this afternoon, read the certificate guide and speak to your own lawyer before anyone signs.

Handing the bundle to a conveyancer

Choose a conveyancer or solicitor who will act for you, not for the seller. Ask them to read the lease purpose, the inquiry dates, the inclusions, the completion date and every special condition. Ask them to tell you which documents are missing against the list the Act and the contract expect, including the unit title sale certificate if you are buying a unit. Give them your inspection notes. A stain you photographed is useless if it stays on your phone.

Ask how they will communicate with the seller’s solicitor, and whether you will see replies. Ask what they need from you for completion: identification, funds, and insurance questions you may need to put to an insurer. We do not arrange insurance. We do tell you that the contract’s risk clause is one of the clauses to ask about, because buyers are often surprised by when risk moves.

Keep a clean copy and a marked copy. When the exchanged version arrives, compare the completion date and the price with your one-line note. If they differ, call your conveyancer before you celebrate. The field guide is here so that call happens while the difference is still a question.

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