For agents
AML Reliance
Key takeaways
- Size up a property from four angles: its physical condition, the numbers and valuation, the legal due diligence, and any environmental or neighbourhood overlays.
- Line up your search with what you can genuinely borrow, keeping a buffer for stamp duty, inspection fees and conveyancing disbursements.
- Order a professional contract review before you offer or bid, and leave realistic lead time so nothing is rushed. [VERIFY: turnaround]
Once you're ready to buy, the focus shifts to the property itself — what condition it's in, who carries the risk before settlement, and exactly what's included in the sale. This is where careful checking protects you before you commit, and where the guides below do the heavy lifting on each specific check.
It helps to look at a property through four lenses rather than trying to hold everything in your head at once. Start with its physical condition — the structure, and what a building and pest inspection might turn up. Then weigh the financial side: what the property is realistically worth against the asking price. Next comes the legal due diligence — the contract, the title, and anything attached to it such as easements or restrictive covenants. Finally, check the environmental and neighbourhood overlays like flood, bushfire or heritage that can shape what you're allowed to do with the place. Together these four pillars are the mental map for everything on this page.
A sensible sequence keeps you from paying for checks you don't need yet. Get your finance and search set up first, ideally with a conditional pre-approval so you're only looking at properties you can actually afford. From there, move through the physical inspection, then valuation and market analysis, then any strata or building reports, and finally a legal review of the contract before you commit.
Two things are worth doing earlier than most buyers expect. First, order a professional contract review before you offer or bid — it's the surest way to catch covenants, easements or missing disclosures while you can still walk away. Second, build in realistic lead times: a contract review together with a building inspection can take a couple of business days [VERIFY: ~2–5 business days for a contract review plus building inspection], so start well ahead of an offer deadline or auction. What licences an inspector needs, and which disclosure documents a vendor must attach, vary by state [VERIFY: building/pest inspector licensing QLD vs NSW/VIC; vendor-disclosure attachments per state] — and at auction there's usually no cooling-off, so any inspections need to be done before you raise your hand [VERIFY: pre-auction inspection liability — auctions unconditional].
The guides below go deeper on each step — from what's included in the sale and who carries the risk before settlement, to dealing with adverse search results, doing your due diligence, and buying into a strata scheme.