Where it comes from
The scheme comes from the Property Law Act 2023 and began on 1 August 2025. It covers sales of houses, townhouses and units, commercial property and vacant land. Under the Property Law Act 2023 the scheme applies despite any agreement to the contrary, so buyer and seller cannot simply agree to set it aside. It applies to lots, and the Act’s meaning of a lot does not include a proposed lot.
The statement is in the approved form, which the Queensland Government calls form 2. The Property Law Act 2023 says it must be completed with information that is true at the time it is given to the buyer, and signed by the seller. It may be an electronic document, electronically signed.
What form 2 covers, part by part
A summary in our own words of the state’s outline and, for parts 5 and 6, of form 2 itself. The Queensland Government calls its own list incomplete, and the full detail is in sections 4.1 to 4.6 of its guide.
The certificates that travel with it
The statement does not travel alone. The Queensland Government lists prescribed certificates the seller must also give where they apply:
- a title search and the survey plan;
- notices required under environmental protection, building, planning and building commission laws;
- a tree application or order under the neighbourhood disputes law;
- a pool safety certificate, where there is a pool;
- for a lot in a community titles scheme, the community management statement and a body corporate certificate, or for a lot in a BUGTA scheme, a body corporate certificate.
The Property Law Act 2023 lets the seller give the statement and certificates in separate communications, but each one that applies has to be given before the buyer signs. For a unit, the body corporate certificate is where the levies sit; guide 2 reads it closely.
How and when it is handed over
The seller, or an agent the seller authorises, can give the papers in person, by post, or by email or other electronic means, and the seller has to be able to prove they were given. Under the Property Law Act 2023, the seller can also give the buyer a separate physical document saying the papers can be viewed through an electronic link and that the buyer may ask for a copy. Sending the papers to an email or other electronic address needs the buyer’s consent to that address.
At auction, the contract counts as signed when the auction ends. A bidder who registered before it began must have been given the papers before it started. For someone who registers after it starts and was not given them beforehand, the papers, or a notice of an electronic link to them, have to be displayed at the auction from start to finish, or for an online auction made available in the same medium. A link has to work until the auction ends, and at an in-person auction where only a link is displayed, if the buyer asks for a physical copy the seller must give or display one.
What it does not cover
The statement is a list of facts about title, planning, notices and charges. It is not a report on the building. The Queensland Government names structural soundness, flooding history and past building or development approvals among the things a seller does not have to include. The full list is in a warning the Property Law Regulation 2024 puts on the statement. In its order: any flooding or other natural hazard history; structural soundness or pest infestation; how the property is used now or was used before; building or development approvals, past or present; planning limits on how the land may be used; services that are or could be connected; and whether there is asbestos in the buildings or improvements. It encourages buyers to make their own inquiries about these matters before signing. The Asbestos and Silica Safety and Eradication Agency’s advice for householders says it is “not recommended that you handle or remove asbestos yourself”, and that getting a professional to do the job is easier, safer and often cheaper. It adds that all asbestos waste must go to a landfill licensed to accept it. In Queensland, asbestos waste is regulated waste: it has to go to a landfill that can lawfully receive it, and putting it in a household garbage bin is illegal. Two of those gaps have their own guides here: flood information, and building and pest inspections, which also covers what to do about asbestos.
If it goes wrong
When a buyer may end the contract
The Property Law Act 2023 gives the buyer two routes to ending the contract, open at any time before settlement.
- Nothing given. The statement, or a certificate that applies, was not given to the buyer before the buyer signed.
- Something wrong. All three of these hold: the papers contained an inaccuracy or omission about a material matter affecting the lot; the buyer did not know of it on signing; and the buyer would not have signed if they had known.
The Queensland Government notes this can apply even where the seller’s mistake was unintentional. Under the Property Law Regulation 2024, the rates and water information is not a material matter. The buyer ends the contract by giving the seller a termination notice before settlement. If the contract ends this way, the seller must repay what the buyer paid towards the purchase, with any interest earned on it while it was held, within 14 days.
There is an exception. Where a failure is also a failure to comply with another Act, and that Act sets its own consequence for it beyond making it an offence, the buyer cannot end the contract under the scheme. One example is the notice the building commission law requires when a property with work done under an owner-builder permit is offered for sale within 6 years of that work being finished: if it is not given, the seller is taken to have given the buyer a contractual warranty that the work was properly carried out.
Sales the scheme does not reach
Some sales are exempt. The Queensland Government gives examples: a buyer that is the State, a government body, a constructing authority or a listed corporation; buyer and seller who are related parties; a price above $10 million including GST where the buyer waives disclosure; and a council selling to recover unpaid rates. The Property Law Act 2023 holds the full list, in section 100, and sets conditions on these examples. Related parties are exempt only where all the buyers and all the sellers are related and the buyer gives the seller a notice waiving disclosure; that waiver, like the one for a sale above $10 million, has to be given before the buyer signs the contract; and a council selling to recover overdue rates must first give the buyer a notice saying the buyer needs to make their own enquiries and the seller is not required to comply.
Where a loan comes in
Nothing in the scheme is about finance. What it does is put title, planning notices, rates and, for a unit, the body corporate papers in front of a buyer before signing, and a contract that will be paid for with a loan is signed on the same terms as any other. The Queensland Government’s page on the contract of sale covers the contract itself.
Next on the tide table: body corporate levies and sinking funds. Or go back to the tide table.