When you buy a property, the legal risk is obvious: you are the one signing up to hand over a large sum of money for something you need to be sure about. Selling feels different. You already own the place, a buyer wants it, and the agent seems to be doing most of the running. So it is easy to assume the legal side is light.
It is not. In Victoria, the seller (or vendor) carries real legal obligations from before the property even goes on the market, right through to the moment the money lands and the title transfers. Get them wrong and a buyer can walk away from the sale, or worse, come after you afterwards. Most of that work happens quietly in the background, handled by your lawyer or conveyancer, which is exactly why so few sellers know it is happening.
Here is what your lawyer is actually doing for you when you sell.
Before you list: preparing the Section 32
The single biggest piece of vendor-side legal work happens before your first open for inspection.
Under section 32 of the Sale of Land Act 1962 (Vic), you must give every prospective buyer a signed Section 32 statement, also called a Vendor Statement, before they sign the contract. It is a disclosure document, and the obligation sits squarely on you as the vendor, not on the buyer or the agent.
The Section 32 has to set out the legal facts about your property: the title and any mortgages, covenants or easements registered against it, the zoning and any planning overlays, the rates and other outgoings, and a declaration if the property is in a bushfire-prone area. If your property is part of an owners corporation, an owners corporation certificate and supporting documents have to be included too.
Your lawyer prepares this by ordering certificates from each relevant authority, the council, the water authority, the State Revenue Office, Land Use Victoria and others, then assembling them into a statement that complies with the Act. This is not box-ticking. The accuracy of the Section 32 is one of the few things in a property sale that can unravel the whole deal.
If the Section 32 is missing required information or contains something misleading, the buyer may be entitled to end the contract at any time before settlement and get their deposit back. After years of rising prices, a buyer with second thoughts may look for a reason to exit, and a defective Section 32 is the cleanest one there is. A properly prepared statement is for your protection, not just a formality.
This is also why you want the Section 32 ready before you list, not scrambled together after an offer comes in. A buyer reviewing your property, often with their own lawyer checking the Section 32, expects to see it up front.
Drafting the contract of sale
Alongside the Section 32 sits the contract of sale, the document that actually transfers the property when both sides sign.
Most Victorian sales use the standard Law Institute of Victoria and Real Estate Institute of Victoria contract, updated to its current September 2025 edition. Your lawyer prepares it with the particulars of your sale: the price, the deposit, the settlement period, what is included and excluded, and any special conditions you need.
Special conditions are where vendor-side drafting matters most. You might be selling with an existing tenant in place, settling on an unusual timeline, or excluding fixtures a buyer would otherwise assume are included. Each of these needs to be written into the contract correctly, because once it is signed, the contract governs what each side can and cannot do.
One area to flag with your lawyer is the treatment of land tax and windfall gains tax. The rules changed on 1 January 2024. You can no longer pass on land tax to a buyer in a contract where the sale price is under the relevant threshold (set at $10,700,000 for the year starting 1 January 2026, and adjusted each year for inflation), and you cannot pass on a windfall gains tax liability that was assessed before you signed the contract. Your lawyer should make sure the contract is drafted within the rules.
Once the property is under contract
After a buyer signs and pays the deposit, the property is "under contract". A few things now move in parallel, and your lawyer manages them.
First is the cooling-off period. A buyer in a private sale generally has three clear business days to change their mind, with penalties, and certain exceptions apply (there is no cooling-off period at auction, for example). We cover this in detail in our guide to the cooling-off period in Victoria. From the vendor's side, the practical point is that the sale is not fully locked in until the cooling-off period has run.
Second, if you want early access to the deposit rather than waiting until settlement, your lawyer can prepare a Section 27 statement (an early release of deposit authority). The deposit is normally held by the agent in trust until settlement. A Section 27 lets you ask the buyer to release it sooner, by giving them a statement of any mortgage and caveat details over the property so they can satisfy themselves the sale price comfortably clears what you owe. The buyer's representative reviews it before agreeing to release the funds. This can be very helpful if you need the deposit for a deposit on your next purchase.
Your lawyer also has to verify your identity before settlement. This is a legal requirement under the electronic conveyancing rules. We explain why identity verification matters for both buyers and sellers.
Getting ready for settlement
In the weeks before settlement, your lawyer is preparing the documents that actually transfer the property and clearing anything standing in the way.
The most important of these is discharging your mortgage. At settlement you have to be able to give the buyer clear title, free of your mortgage and any caveats. If you still owe money on the property, your lawyer coordinates with your bank to obtain a payout figure and arrange the discharge so the loan is paid out from the sale proceeds at the moment of settlement. This sounds simple and often is not, because lenders can be slow, and a discharge that is not ready on time is one of the most common causes of a delayed settlement.
Your lawyer also agrees the Statement of Adjustments with the buyer's lawyer. This is the calculation that splits council rates, water rates and any owners corporation fees between you and the buyer, based on the settlement date. You have usually prepaid some of these for periods that run past settlement, so the adjustment credits you for the portion the buyer should bear. Our guide to the Statement of Adjustments walks through how it works.
Settlement day and after
In Victoria, residential settlements are almost entirely electronic, run through the PEXA platform. Your lawyer signs the transfer documents on your behalf, balances the figures with the buyer's lawyer and both banks in a shared digital workspace, and at the booked time the transaction completes: the buyer's funds arrive, your mortgage is paid out, and the title transfers.
Once settlement completes, your lawyer authorises the agent to release the keys and accounts to you for the net proceeds. We cover what happens for vendors in more detail in our guide to what happens after you sign as a vendor.
What this means for you
Selling looks like an agent's job with a bit of paperwork at the end. In practice, the legal work starts before you list and does not stop until the money is in your account and the title has changed hands. The Section 32, the contract, the mortgage discharge, the adjustments and the settlement itself are all places where a small error can cost you the sale or a chunk of your proceeds. That is what your lawyer is for.
If you are thinking about selling and want to know what it will cost, you can request a fixed-fee quote for the full conveyancing job. If you have already received a contract from a buyer and want it looked over before you sign, we offer a free same-day contract review.
This article provides general information about Victorian property law. It's not a substitute for legal advice on your specific situation. If you'd like to discuss your circumstances, get in touch.
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