Sign a contract to buy a home in Victoria and, in most private sales, you get three clear business days to change your mind. Miss the deadline by a day and the right is gone, so the date matters.
Counting it is fiddlier than it looks. The day you sign does not count. Weekends do not count. Public holidays observed across Victoria do not count. Get one of those wrong and you are a day out.
This calculator does the counting and shows you every day it counted, so you can check the working yourself. It tells you your deadline. It does not tell you whether ending the contract is the right move, and it is not a substitute for talking to your conveyancer.
Cooling-off period calculator
Enter the date you signed the contract and answer a few short questions. We will count the three clear business days for you and show you the working, so you can check it.
How the cooling-off period works
The Sale of Land Act 1962 (Vic) gives a purchaser three clear business days to give notice that they want to end the contract. Three points do most of the work.
First, the clock starts when the purchaser signs, not when the vendor signs. If the vendor signs days later, that does not push your deadline out.
Second, “clear” means the day you signed is not one of the three. Counting starts on the next business day.
Third, a business day is any day other than a Saturday, a Sunday, or a day observed as a public holiday throughout Victoria. Holidays that only apply in one region, such as a local substitute for Melbourne Cup Day, are not observed across the whole state, so they are not treated as excluded days here. If your window touches one, check with your conveyancer.
The period ends at the end of the third clear business day. Your notice has to be given within those three days, so leaving it until late on the final day is a risk worth avoiding.
A worked example
Say you sign the contract on Wednesday 14 October 2026.
Wednesday itself does not count, because the three days have to be clear of the day you signed. Counting starts the next business day.
Day one is Thursday 15 October. Day two is Friday 16 October. Saturday 17 and Sunday 18 October are weekend days, so they are skipped. Day three is Monday 19 October. There are no Victorian public holidays in that week.
So the cooling-off period ends at the end of Monday 19 October 2026. Notice given on Tuesday 20 October would be too late.
When cooling off does not apply
Cooling off is not universal. The Act puts some property outside the section altogether, and lists situations where the right does not arise.
Two types of property sit outside it. Land used mainly for industrial or commercial purposes is not covered. Neither is land larger than 20 hectares that is used mainly for farming. For farmland both parts have to be true, the size and the main use.
Auctions are the exception most buyers run into. There is no cooling off on a sale by publicly advertised auction. The Act also removes it where the land sells within three clear business days before the day of a publicly advertised auction for that land, on the auction day itself, or within three clear business days after it. That last part catches the familiar situation where a property passes in and sells to a bidder soon after.
Two more situations remove the right. There is no cooling off where the same vendor and purchaser have already entered a contract for the same land in substantially the same terms. And there is none where the purchaser is a corporate body, or an estate agent within the meaning of the Estate Agents Act 1980. For that last one, what counts is the purchaser named on the contract, so buying through a company or a trustee company changes the answer.
If any of these apply to you, the calculator will say so rather than produce a date.
One thing that is not an exception is buying off the plan. An off-the-plan contract signed at a private sale carries the same three clear business days as any other.
If the contract does not mention cooling off
The Act also requires the contract itself to carry a conspicuous notice telling the purchaser about the cooling-off right, and it makes void any contract term that tries to exclude or restrict that right.
Where the required notice is missing from the contract, the Act gives the purchaser a right to rescind, exercisable at any time before the purchaser becomes entitled to possession or to the rents and profits. This is general information about what the section says, not a view about any particular contract. Whether it applies to yours depends on the document, so have your conveyancer read it.
How to give a cooling-off notice
You end the contract by giving notice, in writing, within the three clear business days.
The Act says the notice can be given to the vendor, to the vendor’s agent, or to the estate agent selling the land. It can also be left at the vendor’s address for service set out in the contract, at the vendor’s agent’s address, or at the estate agent’s address.
What matters in practice is that the notice actually gets there in time and that you can prove it did. Keep the email, the delivery record, or a file note of when and where it was left. A conveyancer can prepare and send the notice for you, which is the safest route if the deadline is close. Call them as soon as you are thinking about it, not on the final afternoon.
What cooling off costs
Ending a contract this way is not free, but it is cheap compared with the alternative.
The Act says the purchaser gets back all the money they have paid, except an amount the vendor may keep. That amount is $100 or 0.2 per cent of the purchase price, whichever is greater.
On a $700,000 purchase, 0.2 per cent is $1,400, so that is what the vendor keeps. On a $40,000 purchase, 0.2 per cent is $80, so the $100 minimum applies instead. Everything else you have paid, including the rest of any deposit, comes back to you. Your conveyancer can confirm the exact figure for your contract.
Ending the contract this way also means the purchase never settles, so there is no stamp duty to pay on it. Duty is assessed on the purchase price and paid at settlement. If you do go ahead, our Victorian stamp duty calculator works out what that will be.
Frequently asked questions
How long is the cooling-off period in Victoria?
Three clear business days in most private sales of residential property. “Clear” means the day you signed is not counted, and business days exclude weekends and days observed as public holidays throughout Victoria. The period runs from when the purchaser signs, not when the vendor signs.
What time does the cooling-off period end?
At the end of the third clear business day. The Act requires the notice to be given before that period expires, and it does not set a specific hour, so a notice sent late in the day on day three is cutting it fine. If you are getting close, speak to your conveyancer that morning rather than that evening.
Is there a cooling-off period when you buy at auction?
No. A sale by publicly advertised auction is excluded. The exclusion also covers a sale within three clear business days before the auction day, a sale on the auction day, and a sale within three clear business days after it. This is why a contract and Section 32 review before you bid is worth more than one afterwards.
What does it cost to pull out during the cooling-off period?
The vendor may keep $100 or 0.2 per cent of the purchase price, whichever is greater. You get back the rest of what you have paid. On a $700,000 property that is $1,400.
Can a buyer pull out after the cooling-off period has ended?
Once the period has passed, the contract is generally binding, and pulling out can be expensive. Any remaining way out usually depends on the contract’s own conditions, such as a finance condition or a subject to sale condition, and on their deadlines. This is contract-specific, so ask your conveyancer to read yours before you do anything.
About this calculator
This calculator gives general information about the cooling-off rules in Victoria. It is not legal advice, and it does not take account of your contract or your circumstances. The result is a guide to help you have a better conversation with your conveyancer, not a substitute for one.
The rules used here were checked against the Sale of Land Act 1962 (Vic), sections 30 and 31, Authorised Version No. 173 as at 1 July 2026, on 4 August 2026. Read the Act at https://www.legislation.vic.gov.au/in-force/acts/sale-land-act-1962/173 and the plain-English guidance from Consumer Affairs Victoria at https://www.consumer.vic.gov.au/housing/buying-and-selling-property/buying-property/buying-property-by-private-sale.
Before you act on a deadline, confirm it with your conveyancer.
Get the contract reviewed before your deadline
This tool tells you when your cooling-off period ends. It cannot tell you whether you should use it.
That question comes down to what is actually in the contract and the Section 32: the special conditions, the deposit terms, the settlement date, what the owners corporation documents say, what the title shows. Reading those is our job, and we do it free. If this is your first purchase, we also check that nothing in the contract puts your first home buyer duty concession at risk.
Send us the contract and Section 32 and we will review them and come back to you within 24 hours, with no obligation and no cost. If you are inside a cooling-off period right now, say so when you send it and we will treat it as urgent.
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