Sale of Land in NSW

Sale of Land in NSW: Commentary and Materials Sixth Edition analyses the effects of the 2017 standard form of contract for sale of land and the Conveyancing (Sale of Land) Regulation 2017 (NSW) on Conveyancing law and practice. The plain English style, carefully selected extracts and concise approach ensures readers gain a sound working knowledge of the fundamental legal principles of vendor and purchaser law.

In the time since the last edition of this book, the law and practice of conveyancing has had to adapt to deal with the changing legal and regulatory environment. There have been three editions of the Standard From Contract in the last three years to deal with the introduction of electronic conveyancing and capital gains withholding for foreign residents, and further increases in the number and type of regulatory matters that affect the quality of land, including the requirement for warnings and vendor disclosure.

The intent of this book is still to provide students with a sound introduction to the fundamental concepts of conveyancing law and practice; and to provide practitioners with a first point of reference from which to commence their research.

We have sought in this edition to provide some comparative material on aspects of the law of conveyancing in other Australian jurisdictions. One thing that has stood out in preparing this edition has been the variety of standard form contracts in the Australian States and Territories and the extent of differences, both great and subtle, in their legislative regimes. It has not been possible to adopt a systematic review of those regimes, but where possible we have provided references to interstate statutes, or a short comparative commentary.

The primary subject of the book, though, is the law of New South Wales. There have not been quite so many new decisions to extract as in the previous edition, but the interaction of principles of property, contract and equity has produced decisions on several practical aspects, such as the implications of providing settlement statements, and the relationship between the purchaser's obligation to submit a transfer and the vendor's obligation to convey.