Victoria Conveyancing From $879

Purchasing a property in Victoria is very similar to purchasing a property in other Australian States. The “buyer beware” rule applies in Victoria just like it would apply in any other States. Hence, it is crucial for you to complete your due diligence, preferably prior to entering the contract. We recommend you seek pre-contract review advice from our property lawyer, ascertain your borrowing capacity and undertake a pre-contract signing building and pest inspection prior to making an offer. If you intend to develop the property, we further recommend that you make relevant enquiries with the local government authorities as to your intended use and development of the property.

While the process is quite similar between States, there are certain stark differences between them. If you are purchasing a property in a different State from your usual State of residence, you should speak to a lawyer from our firm to understand the differences. We can draw correlations between the practices in the various States to make it easier for you to understand.

When you intend to sell a property in Victoria, apart from appointing an agent, you will be required to engage a property lawyer/conveyancer to prepare the Contract of Sale incorporating the Vendor Statement (also known as the Section 32 Statement). The section 32 statement is a vendor’s disclosure statement to purchasers before they sign the contract. Victoria is the only State in Australia that requires a Vendor Statement to be provided to purchasers prior to entering a legally binding contract.

There are serious consequences to the vendor for knowingly or recklessly providing false information or failing to supply all required information, including providing prospective purchasers with a potential avenue to validly rescind the contract prior to settlement.

If you engage us to prepare the Contract and Section 32 for you, we will ensure that both documents are prepared properly to ensure that you have a legally binding contract from the moment of signing. Additionally, we also have our own set of special conditions that reflects industry best practice, intended to clearly stipulate, and reinforce your rights and interests as the vendor.

Searches are basically property certificates that are purchased from the relevant local government authorities, such as the local council, water authority, State Revenue Office, VicRoads, your owner’s corporation manager (if applicable) that contains important information about the property that you are selling. It is generally sufficient disclosure to comply with the Section 32 of the Sale of Land Act 1962 if the full set of certificates are included. However, in some unique cases, additional searches and property certificates may need to be ordered to suit your particular property. This is where you will need to speak to a very good property lawyer / conveyancer to receive proper advice on the type of certificate that you need to satisfy your obligations under Section 32.

Although it is easy enough to satisfy, unfortunately not all conveyancers will know what to recommend, to produce a full and complete Section 32 disclosure statement. If you are looking to sell a Victorian property, ensure that you engage a good lawyer who can explain to you the importance of property certificates and searches. Remember that if the correct searches, standard ones, or additional ones specific to your property, you may have inadvertently left the backdoor open for your purchaser to walk out before settlement.

Coinciding with the booming property market, it is common these days for properties to be offered for sale at a public auction. The most important difference between purchasing a property at a public auction and making a private offer is that auction contracts are unconditional from signing. This means that cooling-off period does not apply and that you cannot make the contract subject to any condition precedents. In other words, you will be bound to complete the contract regardless of the condition of the property and/or your financial situation.

Therefore, if you intend to purchase a property at an auction (or make a private offer within 3 business days on either side of a publicly advertised auction), it is imperative that you satisfy yourself of your financial arrangement and the physical condition of the property. We recommend that you obtain independent legal advice by providing a copy of the contract to us for a pre-signing contract review and so that the terms of the contract can be negotiated and agreed to between the parties prior to you attending the auction. We also highly recommend that you obtain a pre-approval from your financier and to arrange a building and pest inspection prior to the auction date.

The standard conditions of Victorian contracts provide that the purchaser purchase the property “as is” and “where is”, in its present condition, subject to any patent (obvious) or latent (hidden) defects, fair wear and tear excepted. Therefore, unless provided for under a special condition, the vendor is only required to handover the property to you in the same condition as it was in on the day of sale. Therefore, if any appliance was not in working order on the day of sale, generally you cannot require the vendor to rectify the issue prior to settlement. Please seek our advice if you wish to insert a special condition in the contract to ensure that the chattels are delivered to you in a good condition on settlement.

Pursuant to the current legislative requirements, Legal Practitioners are required to undertake an identification verification process with their clients. This ensures that you are identified as the person who you claim to be and that we are dealing with the right persons in relation to a transaction. You will usually be required to produce your identity documents such as your passport and driver licence for this purpose. If these documents cannot be produced, we will advise you of other alternative documents which could satisfy the Verification of Identity requirements. Once the process is completed, the verification shall remain valid for two years.

All documents which can be electronically lodged with Land Use Victoria (formerly known as the Land Titles Office), must now be lodged through the electronic transaction system known as PEXA (Property Exchange Australia).

The previous practice where all parties to a transaction are required to print, sign and post a paper-based Transfer of Land and duties forms around to each other for signing have been abolished and replaced by a similar process, but undertaken in the online environment. It is for this reason that we are required to retain as a part of our file, the Client Authorisation Form, which represents your authorisation to us to transact the property for you in electronic means.

We will prepare the Client Authorisation Form during our settlement preparation steps and provide to you for your perusal, signing and return.

Deeming provisions are common condition precedents to any property transactions in Victoria. Condition precents just mean that there are certain conditions that need to be satisfied before settlement are required to happen. Examples of condition precents are the subject to finance clause and the subject to building and pest inspection clauses. These clauses are deeming provisions because the exit provisions have a deadline for you to exercise your rights, or your right expires. In simple laymen language, using the subject to finance clause as an example, it means that if you don’t tell the other side that you haven’t received your finance approval by the due date, they will assume (deem) that you have obtained your finance approval and will proceed to settlement.

As such, it is imperative to diarise these critical dates and ensure that you provide us with relevant instructions, so we can serve the appropriate notices on the vendor’s representative on your behalf before the due date.

The risks in relation to the property remains with the vendor until settlement, which means that it is their responsibility to deliver the property to you in the same condition as it was on the day of sale, minus fair wear and tear.

However, standard practice isn’t always sufficient to protect your best interest in the practical sense, because in Victoria, there are many ways in which a vendor can get out of their responsibility to you. In addition, depending on the contract given to you, you might have inadvertently contracted out of the requirement to demand that a property of original condition be delivered to you.

Hence, we usually advise our clients that as of the date of the Contract, as a purchaser, you have an insurable interest in the property, and should exercise your rights to seek insurance cover over the property. Plus, it is also common practice for your lender to require the sighting of your insurance policy over the property and its interests as the incoming mortgagee noted on the policy, prior to a settlement booking.

At the very least, we suggest that a cover note be obtained from the insurer pending receipt of the formal policy. This would become handy in the unlikely event that some major incidents occurred at the property prior to settlement and the vendor does not have insurance or the insurance is insufficient. This insurance policy should continue to be maintained beyond settlement.

The original duplicate Certificates of Title (in paper form) remain valid in Victoria. However, as most of the transactions are required to be completed on the electronic settlement platform known as PEXA (Property Exchange Australia), the paper titles will be converted to electronic Certificate of Title (eCT) prior to settlements so that settlements can proceed. If you are the seller of a property and hold a paper Certificate of Title in your possession, we will require the duplicate Certificate of Title to be delivered to us at the earliest and prior to settlement so we may convert it to an eCT prior to settlement.

There are various possible scenarios that may be applicable to this situation.

If you did not obtain a loan to facilitate your purchase of the property, the original duplicate Certificate of Title may have been issued to your previous representative who may have been keeping the Title in their safe custody for you. If this is the case, it is recommended that you liaise with your previous representative to obtain the title from them.

If you purchased the property with a loan but have since paid out the whole lot and closed your account, it is possible that you might not have taken the original Certificate of Title from your lender’s safe custody at the time. In fact, in some circumstances, the mortgage might still be registered on the title, many years after you have already discharged your loan in full. In such cases, you just need to approach the bank to request that they discharge the loan fully and produce the title to you in paper form, or preferably, for them to release the title on the settlement platform to us as your conveyancers (if you’re selling the property through us) so we can transact it directly to the purchaser on settlement.

If you are certain that you had in possession the original duplicate Certificate of Title, yet you are unable to find it, it could unfortunately be the case that the title was lost. In these situations, we can lodge a lost-title application with Land Use Victoria on your behalf. However, this can be a very time consuming and costly exercise.

In any case, if you find yourselves in any of the above scenarios, we can help you navigate the various authorities’ systems and requirements to ensure a successful settlement. Contact our office for a 20 minutes free consultation.