By Tony Cahill and Diane Skapinker -
Snapshot
- Changes to the standard form contract for sale and purchase of land have been made.
- Recent changes to the Conveyancing and Real Property Amendment Act 2025 expanded regulation of residential property options—prompting a review of the contract to align with the new statutory framework.
- Major updates include revised cooling‑off notice requirements, clarified operation of clauses 28 and 29 in response to recent case law, refreshed inclusions (such as solar batteries) and updated warnings.
The 2026 edition of the Law Society of NSW and Real Estate Institute of NSW’s standard form contract for sale and purchase of land was released on 2 March 2026.
The key driver for a review of the 2022 edition was the passage of the Conveyancing and Real Property Amendment Act 2025 (NSW) (‘Amendment Act’) which commenced in the main on 15 August 2025. The Amendment Act extended the regulatory framework governing options over residential property to include not only options to purchase residential property (‘call options’) but also ‘options to compel the purchase of residential property’ (‘put options’) (sections 66P and 66Z of the Conveyancing Act 1919 (NSW) (‘Act’)). There were consequential amendments to Part 4 Divisions 8 and 9 of the Act, and to the Conveyancing (Sale of Land) Regulation 2022 (NSW). Critically, for the standard form contract, the prescribed form of cooling off notice in Schedule 5 of the Act was amended by deleting the phrase ‘to purchase the property’.
