New Contract for the Sale and Purchase
The new edition of the Contract for the Sale and Purchase of Land is effective from 12 September 2022. Although a six-month transition period is provided, to avoid issues at the expiry of the transition period, your lawyers should move to the 2022 edition Contract for the Sale and Purchase of Land without delay when drafting your contract to sell your property. After 1 March 2023, 2019 edition Contract for the Sale and Purchase of Land cannot be used.
Changes in the 2022 edition of the Property Contact
- Several new inclusions appeared on the first page of the contract concerning the property, eg, air conditioning, ceiling fans and EV charger (electric vehicle charger)
- The new execution page is on page 2. Specific execution panels for a corporate property purchaser or vendor have been added. When the property purchaser or vendor is a natural person, a prompt for a witness is no longer provided. A blank space on page 2 is provided for execution under a power of attorney.
- A new prompt “specify”, has been inserted as a reminder to insert details of the shares when the property purchasers are buying as tenants in common in unequal shares.
- E-conveyancing is the norm. Clauses have been restructured in emphasizing an electronic conveyance via PEXA while only the minority of property transactions take place as manual paper transactions.
- GST AMOUNT has not changed in substance, it just appears as a line rather than a box.
- Page 3 Tax Information, if the details of the GSTRW payment are not fully completed at the contract date, those details must be provided at least 7 days before the date for completion. Further clause 13.14 reduces the submission of GSTRW payment notification from 5 days to 2 business days.
- Signing a digital contract when you sell or buy a property must meet the requirements of section 9 of the Electronic Transaction Act 2000.
- Payment of deposit by electronic funds transfer, new clause 2.4.3 allows the vendor to request evidence of the electronic funds transfer; clause 2.5.3 provides the vendor to terminate the property contract if the electronic funds transfer has not been received by the third business day after the time for payment.
- Clause 14.5 provides that any first-home buyer choice property tax is not to be adjusted. Clause 16.1 includes a reference to a charge so that in the event that unpaid first home buyer choice property tax will form a charge on the land, this charge must be cleared before or on settlement.
CFS Legal prepares the vendor’s property contract within 5 business days. Email: info@cfslegal.com.au to prepare your property contract.