The buying and selling of property occurs everyday, but with each transaction worth a large sum of money there is of course a lot of regulation of the transactions. In fact in Queensland each single conveyancing transaction is governed by over 20 separate pieces of legislation.
If you are selling your property it is important that you meet your legal obligations to the buyer in order to avoid any legal action later on. A person buying your property is clearly spending a lot of money on it and doesn’t want to come across any nasty surprises following settlement, or find that there is anything wrong with the property.
This is why seller’s disclosure is such an important part of the conveyancing process. While a buyer will have their solicitor carry out a variety of searches on the property to ensure it has no defects, there may also be unregistered interests on the property that these searches will not uncover, or you may know something else that will affect the property. For example you may know that a mobile phone tower is soon to be built near the property. The buyer will not be aware of this, but this could potentially be a major concern to them.
While disclosing this may jeapordise the sale, or lead to a price reduction in your property, you have a legal obligation to disclose this to the buyer to avoid leaving them at a disadvantage.
In the case of Commercial Bank of Australia v Amadio, the court found in favour of the disadvantaged party, due to them being unable to make a judgment in their best interest as a result of a lack of disclosure from the other party.
Failing to make full disclosure could place you in breach of the Competition and Consumer Act 2010 and lead to legal action being taken against you.