Section 32, Form 1, and the rest: vendor disclosure across Australia

A Melbourne vendor lists a 1960s townhouse for $1.1m. The campaign clears in three weeks, contracts sign on a Tuesday, and the building inspection turns up a retaining wall built in 1998 without a council permit. The buyer's conveyancer checks the Section 32, finds no mention of the unapproved works, and rescinds the contract before settlement. The vendor refunds the deposit, eats $14,000 of marketing and agent commission already spent, and restarts the campaign in a softer market. The legal mechanism that made all of that possible is the same one in every state, operating under a different name and a different statute.

Vendor disclosure is the most under-read document in an Australian property transaction, and the one most likely to unwind a signed contract. Below is what each state actually requires, what it costs to prepare, and what a careful buyer looks for inside it.

VIC: the Section 32 Vendor's Statement

Victoria runs the strictest regime. Under section 32 of the Sale of Land Act 1962, the vendor must give the buyer a written statement before the contract is signed. The document has to cover title particulars and encumbrances, council and water rates, planning and zoning information, building permits issued in the last seven years, owners-corporation details if the property is in a strata or company-title scheme, services connected to the lot, GST treatment, and any government notices or orders affecting the land.

If the statement is materially wrong or incomplete, the buyer can rescind any time before settlement, no penalty, deposit refunded. "Materially" is a low bar in practice: unapproved building works, an undisclosed easement, a missing owners-corporation certificate, or a planning amendment the vendor knew about are all standard rescission triggers. A Victorian conveyancer prepares the Section 32 for roughly $250 to $500, and it is one of the first documents commissioned once the agency agreement is signed.

SA: Form 1 and the cooling-off trigger

South Australia's equivalent is the Form 1, prescribed under the Land and Business (Sale and Conveyancing) Act 1994. The disclosure content is similar in spirit to VIC's Section 32, but the procedural rule attached to it is the one that catches sellers out: the two-business-day cooling-off period does not start until the Form 1 has been correctly served on the buyer. Serve it late, or with a defect, and the buyer's rescission window extends accordingly.

That makes the Form 1 a timing weapon as well as a disclosure document. A buyer who develops cold feet between contract signing and settlement will have their conveyancer comb the Form 1 for any defect, then use that defect to reopen the cooling-off clock. Preparation costs run $250 to $400 through a SA conveyancer, and most listing agents will not market a property until the Form 1 is on file.

NSW: disclosure baked into the contract

New South Wales takes a different approach. There is no standalone vendor-statement document. Instead, section 52A of the Conveyancing Act 1919 requires a set of prescribed documents to be attached to the contract for the sale of land before it is offered for sale. The standard attachments are the title search, the drainage diagram, the section 10.7(2) planning certificate, and (where reticulated) the sewer service diagram. A strata sale also requires the strata-information certificate and the by-laws.

If a prescribed document is missing or wrong, the buyer can rescind within fourteen days of exchange. Most NSW disputes turn on planning-certificate accuracy: a section 10.7 certificate that fails to disclose a bushfire-prone or flood-affected designation is the most common rescission trigger, followed by missing strata levies and unapproved building works flagged in council's records. NSW disclosure documents cost $200 to $400 in third-party fees, plus the conveyancer's time inside the standard purchase fee.

QLD: lighter regime, but tightening

Queensland historically had the lightest vendor-disclosure rules in the country. Most disclosure happened through contract conditions and the buyer's own due diligence, with statutory requirements limited to seller warranties under the Property Occupations Act 2014 and a narrow set of Form 30c-style notices. That is now changing. The Property Law Act 2023, in force from August 2025, introduced a mandatory seller-disclosure regime closer to the VIC model: title information, planning details, encumbrances, body corporate certificates, and any pending or current notices affecting the property.

Queensland vendors listing in late 2026 should expect to commission a disclosure pack as a matter of course. Buyers whose contracts are signed without one (where it was required) can rescind before settlement. The cost has settled around $400 to $600 as the conveyancing market adjusts.

WA: disclosure via warranty, not statement

Western Australia uses the Joint Form of General Conditions as its standard contract. There is no separate vendor statement; instead, the contract incorporates a narrow set of vendor warranties (clear title, no undisclosed encumbrances, compliance with the contract's special conditions) and leaves the rest to the buyer's settlement agent to verify. The practical effect is that WA buyers do more of their own searching than buyers in VIC or SA, and breaches of vendor warranty are pursued as damages after settlement rather than as a rescission lever before it.

The settlement agent's contract review is therefore the critical step. A good agent runs a Landgate title search, an instrument-of-encumbrance check, a planning enquiry to the local council, and a building-approvals search before recommending settlement. If something turns up that the vendor warranted otherwise, the remedy is monetary, not recission.

TAS, ACT, NT: the smaller regimes

Tasmania requires a vendor statement covering title particulars, zoning, and connected services. The documentation is lighter than VIC's Section 32 but serves the same purpose, and buyers can rescind for material misdescription. ACT operates under section 9AA of the Civil Law (Sale of Residential Property) Act 2003, which mandates a disclosure statement before contract that covers essentially the same ground as the Section 32, including building approvals and energy-efficiency ratings (a Canberra specific requirement). NT runs the lightest regime in the country: disclosure is largely contractual, with no statutory vendor-statement equivalent.

What omissions actually unwind contracts

Across every regime, four omissions account for the vast majority of rescissions:

• Unapproved building works. Pergolas, carports, extensions, retaining walls, and bathroom renovations done without permit show up in council records and need to be disclosed. The Melbourne retaining-wall scenario at the top of this article is the prototypical case.
• Undisclosed easements, covenants, or caveats. The title search will find them; if the vendor statement does not list them, that is grounds to rescind.
• Missing or stale owners-corporation / strata certificates. Special levies, current legal proceedings, and major works planned in the next twelve months all have to appear. A buyer who finds a $40,000 special levy on the inspection report that was not on the certificate will walk.
• Planning or zoning amendments the vendor knew about. A section 10.7 certificate or Section 32 that pre-dates a recent rezoning, or fails to disclose a lapsed permit, is a common NSW and VIC rescission trigger.

Beyond rescission, material misrepresentation in any vendor-disclosure document opens the seller to damages claims under state-based consumer protection legislation, and in serious cases, civil penalties.

Cost to prepare, by state

• VIC Section 32: $250 to $500 through a conveyancer.
• SA Form 1: $250 to $400.
• NSW prescribed-document pack: $200 to $400 in third-party fees, plus conveyancer time inside the standard $1,800-$2,500 purchase fee.
• QLD Property Law Act disclosure: $400 to $600.
• WA, TAS, ACT, NT: $200 to $500 depending on the regulatory weight of the document.

These costs roll into the vendor-side stack alongside agent commission, marketing, and conveyancing fees. The selling cost calculator sums the lot so you can see how the disclosure spend sits relative to the campaign budget.

A seller's checklist before commissioning

Most rescissions trace back to information the seller had, could have disclosed, and didn't. Before the conveyancer starts drafting:

• Pull every building approval and final inspection record from council going back ten years. Anything you can't match to a permit is a problem to disclose, not to hide.
• If the property is in strata, request a fresh owners-corporation certificate dated within thirty days of contract signing. Stale certificates are the most common unforced error in apartment sales.
• Order a title search yourself before listing, not just when your conveyancer drafts the statement. Easements, covenants, and old caveats sometimes survive on title unnoticed by the owner.
• Disclose voluntarily anything you're unsure about. Over-disclosure does not unwind contracts; under-disclosure does.

What a buyer reads it for

On the other side of the table, a buyer's conveyancer runs the same document through a different filter:

• Special levies in the last two years and any planned in the next twelve. Recent levies signal building issues the strata committee is already aware of.
• Building permits versus the actual structures on site. Anything visible at the open inspection that does not appear on the permit history triggers a follow-up.
• Planning overlays: heritage, bushfire, flood, vegetation protection, design-and-development. Each one constrains what the buyer can do with the land after settlement.
• Notices and orders: council orders to repair, demolish, or comply. These travel with the title.

A pre-purchase building and pest inspection often confirms or denies what the vendor statement claims; the two documents read together are more powerful than either alone.

Where this fits in the transaction

Vendor disclosure is one of three documents that decide whether a property transaction completes cleanly. The other two are the contract itself and the buyer's legal advice. Choosing between a conveyancer and a solicitor determines who reads the disclosure for you; choosing the right sale method determines how much room you have to fix problems before contracts bind. Vendors who treat the disclosure statement as a checkbox lose deals. Vendors who treat it as the documentary spine of the campaign close them.