A Queensland seller must give the buyer a disclosure statement and the prescribed certificates for a lot before the buyer signs the contract. At an auction, the contract is taken to be signed when the auction is completed, and for a buyer who registered as a bidder before the auction started, the papers count as given in time only if the seller gave them before the start.
General informationThis page describes sections 98 to 103 of the Property Law Act 2023 and the Queensland Government’s seller disclosure scheme page, not what applies to any one lot. A solicitor can advise on a particular purchase.
Where the duty comes from
The Queensland Government dates the change to 1 August 2025, when the Property Law Act 2023 brought in a mandatory seller disclosure scheme. Section 99 is the core of it: the seller must give the buyer a disclosure statement for the lot, and each prescribed certificate that applies to it, before the buyer signs a contract for the lot’s sale. A lot here has the Land Title Act 1994 meaning and does not include a proposed lot (section 95). Together the Act calls these the disclosure documents. “Lot” is the Act’s own word with its own meaning, set out in waiving disclosure on a sale above the prescribed amount.
The government’s page adds that the seller, or the seller’s agents if authorised, gives these documents, and that where the seller does not comply, the buyer may be able to end the contract. The Act also says the division these rules sit in “applies despite any agreement to the contrary.”
At an auction, the signing moment moves
At a private sale, “before the buyer signs” points to a pen and a page. At an auction the Act fixes the moment instead: if the lot is sold by auction, then for section 99(1) the Act treats the buyer as signing at the moment the auction is completed. The Queensland Government’s page puts it in everyday terms: at an auction the seller still has to give the statement and certificates to the buyer, or make them available, “before the fall of the hammer.”
Then the Act splits buyers into two groups, by when they registered.
Two buyers, two clocks
Registered before the start
Where the buyer registered as a bidder before the auction began, the Act treats the documents as given in time (that is, before the auction is completed) only if the seller handed them over before it began.
Section 101(2)(b) of the Act sets the rule for a sale by auction: where the buyer registered as a bidder before the auction started, the seller counts as having given the disclosure documents before the auction ended only if they were given before it started.
Registered after the start
If the buyer was not registered as a bidder until after the auction started, and was not given the disclosure documents before the start, the seller is taken to have given them before completion only if the seller complies with section 103.
Section 103 applies when all three of those facts hold: the lot is sold by auction, the buyer registered only after the start, and the buyer was not given the documents before it.
Both rules speak of “the buyer of the lot”: the person who ends up buying. That is how the Act and the government’s guide frame the duty, and this page keeps to their words.
How section 103 is met
Section 103(2) gives the seller two routes, depending on how the auction is run. In each, a document must be available from the start of the auction until its completion.
| How the auction is run | Where the document must be | What it may be |
|---|---|---|
| In person | Displayed at the place of the auction, from the start until completion. | A physical copy of the disclosure documents, or a physical document stating that they can be viewed using a stated electronic link. |
| Electronically | Made available in the same electronic medium used to run the auction, from the start until completion. | A copy of the disclosure documents, or a document stating that they can be viewed, and a copy obtained, using a stated electronic link. |
Two more conditions sit in the same section. Where an in-person auction relied on a notice with a link, and the late registrant asks the seller for a physical copy, the seller has disclosed only if it gives them one or displays one at the place of the auction (section 103(3)). And a link counts only if, by using it, the buyer could have viewed and obtained a copy of the documents from the time the notice was displayed or sent until the auction ended (section 103(4)).
So where section 103 is met, a late registrant finds the documents, or a working link to them, at the auction itself: at the place, or in the electronic medium the auction runs in. Where only a link was shown at an in-person auction and the late registrant asks the seller for a physical copy, they are given one or find one displayed at the place.
The seller carries the proof
Section 101(3) puts the burden on one side: the seller has the onus of proving that the seller gave the buyer the disclosure documents. The government’s page tells sellers the same thing, and suggests keeping proof of delivery such as a read receipt or a signed acknowledgement.
The warning printed on the statement
The approved form, form 2, carries a warning addressed to the buyer:
The statement itself, form 2, opens with a warning to the buyer that it must reach them before they sign the contract.
What the statement itself asks the seller is set out in form 2 and in the government’s guide to the scheme.
If the papers were missing or wrong
The government’s page says a buyer may have a right to end the contract at any point up to settlement where the seller gave no disclosure documents, or gave information that was inaccurate or incomplete, and that this holds even if the failure was unintentional. Where the problem is inaccurate or incomplete disclosure, the page says the buyer must show three things: the issue was material, the buyer was unaware of it when signing, and the buyer would not have signed had they known. The Act limits that right: the buyer cannot end the contract under it where the seller’s failure, or its inaccurate or incomplete disclosure, is also a failure to comply with another Act and that other Act provides a consequence to the seller for it, for example a remedy for the buyer. The other Act does not count as providing a consequence just because the failure, or the inaccurate or incomplete disclosure, is an offence under it (section 104(4) and (5)).
Not every sale needs the documents at all. One of the exceptions in the Act depends on the buyer: the buyer’s waiver above the prescribed amount.