Conveyancing & Property Law in Victoria

The scope of our property work

Our conveyancing and property practice covers the day-to-day work of buying and selling homes, investment properties and commercial premises, together with the legal issues that sit alongside a transaction — off-the-plan purchases, subdivisions, transfers between related parties, adverse possession claims, easements and caveats. Every transaction is handled by a lawyer rather than a paralegal alone, so if a difficult question arises about a title defect, a vendor statement omission or a special condition, we can act on it without delay.

How a Victorian conveyance works

The three principal steps in a Victorian property transaction are contract, condition satisfaction and settlement.

1. Contract of sale and section 32 statement. The vendor prepares a contract of sale and a vendor statement (section 32) disclosing prescribed matters — planning, rates, outgoings, notices, services, owners corporation details and encumbrances on title. The contract is normally signed after review, not before.
2. Conditions. Common contract conditions include subject to finance, subject to building and pest inspection, and subject to sale of another property. Each has a deadline and a specific procedure for extending or terminating if the condition is not met.
3. Settlement. Settlement in Victoria is now conducted electronically through PEXA. The purchaser's funds are exchanged for the transfer, the title is updated at Land Use Victoria, and stamp duty is remitted to the State Revenue Office.

Common issues we encounter

• Vendor statements missing required disclosures.
• Special conditions that shift risk to the purchaser without a corresponding price adjustment.
• Off-the-plan contracts with lengthy sunset dates and variation rights that need close reading.
• GST margin scheme issues on commercial and new-residential sales.
• First home buyer duty exemption or concession eligibility.
• Foreign purchaser additional duty and land tax surcharge.
• Owners corporation records that require investigation before signing.

How Blakie + Britt assists

We review contracts and section 32 statements against the property, highlight risks in plain terms and negotiate amendments where they can be obtained. Once you have signed, we monitor the timeline for conditions, prepare and lodge the transfer, coordinate with your lender and the vendor's representative on PEXA, and attend to stamp duty and any adjustments at settlement. After settlement we hold your copies of the settlement statement and title advice for your records.

What to prepare

• A copy of the contract and section 32 statement (if provided).
• Identification documents required for verification of identity under Land Use Victoria's rules.
• Details of your lender and finance approval (if any).
• Any prior valuations, building inspection reports or planning searches you already hold.

Areas we service

Our office is at Level 1, 480 Collins Street, Melbourne. We regularly act for clients across Hawthorn, Boroondara and Melbourne's eastern suburbs, together with clients across metropolitan Melbourne and regional Victoria for whom electronic settlement now removes practical geography.

When to involve a lawyer

Most property matters benefit from legal input earlier than clients expect. A purchaser is best assisted before making an offer or bidding at auction, so that the contract of sale and vendor statement can be reviewed while the price and conditions can still be negotiated. Vendors are best assisted before the property is listed, so that the section 32 statement is complete when the first prospective purchaser asks for it. In more complex matters — off-the-plan, subdivision, related-party transfer, deceased estate sale — engaging a lawyer at the planning stage often prevents structural problems that are difficult and expensive to unwind later.

Preliminary decisions to think through

• The correct legal name of the purchasing party — an individual, a couple as joint tenants or tenants in common, a company, a trust or a self-managed superannuation fund.
• Whether the property will be a principal place of residence, an investment, a holding for a related business, or a development site.
• Whether any first home buyer duty concession, off-the-plan concession, principal place of residence concession or pensioner concession is likely to be available and what evidence will be required to claim it.
• Whether any party is a foreign purchaser for stamp duty and land tax purposes, or whether a trust structure would attract additional duty.
• For commercial and mixed-use property, whether the sale will be a taxable supply for GST and whether the going concern or margin scheme concessions may apply.

Costs, duty and other outlays

Government charges are a separate line to professional fees. On a purchase they typically include stamp duty (calculated by the State Revenue Office by reference to the dutiable value), the Land Use Victoria registration fee for the transfer, title and property certificates, PEXA transaction fees and, where applicable, adjustments for council rates, water and owners corporation fees. On a sale, typical outlays include mortgage discharge fees, agent commission (payable to the agent under a separate authority), section 27 early release paperwork if the deposit is to be released, and the vendor's share of adjustments. We do not quote unverified duty figures — the State Revenue Office calculator and current rates should be used to confirm the position for any specific transaction.

When other advice is required

Conveyancing frequently touches areas where separate advice from an accountant or financial adviser is important — for example, the tax consequences of holding property in a particular structure, capital gains tax on an investment property sale, GST on commercial supplies, and superannuation compliance for SMSF acquisitions. We will identify these issues in our advice, but we do not provide taxation, accounting or financial product advice.

Common avoidable delays

Most delayed settlements have the same handful of causes: incomplete verification of identity for the purchasers or their attorney; late engagement of an incoming lender; missing owners corporation certificates; unresolved caveats or old mortgages on title; and payments made from foreign bank accounts arriving late in cleared funds. Each of these can be addressed a fortnight before settlement, and we ask clients to attend to them then rather than in the final days.

Limitations of general information

The material on this page describes typical Victorian residential and commercial conveyancing at a general level. Every transaction has particular facts — title, planning, funding, family and tax circumstances — and general information is not a substitute for advice on your matter.