How to Sell a House Privately in Victoria

Selling your home without a real estate agent is legal in Victoria, and the marketing is the part most private sellers handle well.

When you sell your house privately, every legal duty an agent would normally carry now lands on you, and some of them start before the first buyer walks through the door. When a private sale goes wrong, it is rarely the marketing. It is the paperwork, done in the wrong order.

This guide follows the order a Victorian private sale actually runs in: documents, listing, inspections, offers, deposit, cooling off, settlement.

Can you sell a house without an agent in Victoria?

Yes. No Victorian law requires you to use an estate agent, and no law requires a conveyancer either. What changes is who does the work.

In an agent sale, the agent handles offers, fills in the contract details and carries some legal duties. Sell privately and each of those jobs becomes yours, or goes to someone you appoint.

Some of that shift is paperwork. Someone has to prepare the Section 32 and the contract, deal with the deposit and run settlement. Consumer Affairs Victoria notes the statement is usually prepared by a conveyancer or lawyer.

Some of it is risk. Draft your own statement and get it wrong, and there is no professional indemnity insurance behind the mistake. That cover is what a licensed conveyancer carries for you.

What a conveyancer does not do is sell your house. Pricing, photos, the listing, inspections and negotiating stay with you. Our job is the legal side, and the rest of this guide shows where it starts.

Before you list: the paperwork that sets your timeline

Start with the documents, not the listing, because some of them take weeks. The Section 32 vendor statement is your disclosure about the property: what is owing on it, what affects its use, what is connected.

Under the Sale of Land Act 1962 (Vic), that statement must be signed and in the buyer’s hands before the buyer signs the contract. Some private-sale guides say it only needs to be available on request. That is not the rule.

If the statement is late, incomplete or wrong, the buyer can cancel the contract any time before they accept title and take possession. That can be months after signing, long after your marketing is done.

What goes into a Section 32 is its own subject, covered clause by clause in our guide to the Section 32 vendor statement. For planning, what matters is that the statement is built from certificates, and the slowest one sets your timeline.

If the property is in an owners corporation, that certificate can take up to 10 business days after the application and fee. The State Revenue Office’s property clearance certificate usually comes back in about a business day.

Council and water certificates are quick too. In our office, a Section 32 is usually ready within a week of engagement, and the variable is the certificates rather than the drafting.

Apply for your ATO clearance certificate now

The document with the longest lead time is not part of the Section 32 at all. Since 1 January 2025, every Australian resident seller needs a clearance certificate from the Australian Taxation Office.

There is no price threshold any more, and your own home is included. Without a certificate, the buyer must withhold up to 15 per cent of the sale proceeds at settlement. Limited exceptions exist, but most sellers are caught.

As an illustration, a couple selling a $650,000 house who reach settlement without certificates could have up to $97,500 held back. That is money you were probably counting on for your next purchase.

Each owner applies separately, so a couple needs two certificates. The ATO does not charge for them, and they stay valid for 12 months once issued. The ATO says a certificate can take up to 28 days to issue. That is longer than many settlement periods leave spare, so we recommend that vendors apply the week they decide to sell.

Pricing and marketing your home yourself

This is the part the for-sale-by-owner guides tend to cover well. Start with recent sales near you: same suburb, similar land size and condition, sold in the last few months.

Asking prices tell you what other sellers hope for. Sold prices tell you what buyers actually paid.

If you want an independent figure, pay a valuer. You get a number from someone with nothing to gain from your listing.

Sellers often need guidance on pricing, and are unsure whether to start high and come down. Consumer Affairs Victoria’s own advice is that a property left on the market a long time can end up selling for less, so price for inspections, not for pride.

Then do the ordinary work of a campaign. Clean and prepare the house, photograph it well, write an honest description, list it online and put a sign out the front.

None of that needs an agent. What an agent would add at this stage is mostly legal duty, and the next section is where that duty sits.

Running inspections

Once buyers start coming through, two Victorian duties sit with you directly, because there is no agent to carry them.

The first is the due diligence checklist. Section 33B of the Act says a seller offering a house or vacant residential land must make Consumer Affairs Victoria’s due diligence checklist available from the moment the property is offered.

In practice that means a copy at every inspection, and a link to it from any website you run where the property is listed. Engage a licensed agent and the duty passes to them. Sell privately and it stays with you.

The second is the Section 32 itself. Have signed copies ready for anyone who gets serious. A private buyer can decide on a Sunday afternoon, and if the statement is not ready you cannot take their signature.

Beyond those two duties, use common sense. Keep a record of who came through and when, put valuables away, and avoid showing people through on your own where you can.

Handling offers and agreeing the terms

An offer can arrive verbally or in writing, and either way it binds nobody until it is in the contract and signed. The buyer signs the contract to make the offer, and you sign it to accept.

Until you accept, the buyer can withdraw the offer at any time. An enthusiastic phone call on Saturday is not a sale on Monday.

Conditions are where you need to slow down, as a buyer may wish to make the purchase subject to finance, a building inspection or the sale of their own home.

If the sale is subject to a loan, the buyer should name the lender in the contract. Every condition is a way out for the buyer, so each one needs a clear deadline and an outcome you can live with.

The same contract carries the practical terms. The settlement period is usually 30, 60 or 90 days, though you and the buyer can agree on something else.

List the inclusions too, such as the dishwasher, the curtains or the garden shed. An item nobody wrote down becomes an argument at settlement.

If your buyer is a neighbour, a tenant or a relative, all of this still applies. A signed contract with the terms written down ensures that you both stay on good terms after the money moves.

The deposit when you have no agent

With no agent, the buyer pays the deposit straight to you. No law sets the amount, though 10 per cent is usual. That money is not yours yet, and what you do with it next is set by the Act.

Within seven days of receiving it, section 25 of the Act says it must go to your conveyancer, lawyer or estate agent, or into a special purpose account at a Victorian bank or other authorised deposit-taker.

That account must be in both your name and the buyer’s, and it needs both signatures to draw on, so neither of you can touch the money alone. Leaving the deposit in your own account past the seven days is an offence.

A conveyancer or lawyer who receives it holds it as stakeholder, which just means a neutral holder of money that belongs to nobody until settlement. Consumer Affairs Victoria sets out the deposit rules for sellers in plain English.

The seven days run whether or not you have engaged anyone. That is one more reason to have a conveyancer in place before you list.

Cooling off in a private sale

The buyer gets a cooling-off period in a Victorian residential private sale, whatever the price. It runs for three clear business days from when the buyer signs, not from when you sign. Cooling off rights are not available to vendors.

The buyer ends the contract by giving notice to you personally, or at the address for service written into the contract. That address is simply where the contract says notices go, so it has to be right.

Cooling off costs the buyer. They get their money back less the greater of $100 or 0.2 per cent of the price, so on a $600,000 sale they forfeit $1,200. You can work out the exact dates for your contract with our cooling-off period calculator.

There is no cooling off for a sale at public auction or within three clear business days either side of one. It also does not apply to a buyer who is an estate agent or a company, or who already signed a contract on substantially the same terms. Commercial or industrial property and farmland over 20 hectares are also excluded. For an ordinary house sold privately, assume the three days apply.

As a vendor, one cooling-off obligation rests with you. The contract must contain a prominent notice telling the buyer about the cooling-off right. If it is missing, the buyer can cancel any time before they are entitled to possession, not just within three days. A contract from a template, or one a friend drafted, that gets that notice wrong leaves the whole sale open for months.

From signed contract to settlement

Once both signatures are on the contract, most of the work moves to your conveyancer. What happens next is their responsibility: dealing with the buyer’s conveyancer, arranging the discharge of your mortgage, and working out the rates and outgoings adjustments. It ends with the electronic settlement, where the balance is paid and the transfer is lodged. The full sequence is in our guide to the property settlement process.

Your own jobs in that window are small but real. Get the ATO clearance certificates to whoever is settling well before the day, and keep the property in the condition you sold it in, with the included items still there. Expect the buyer to ask for a final inspection shortly before settlement. A problem found then is far easier to fix than one found after the money has moved.

If you would rather hand the legal side over, from the Section 32 through to settlement day, that is what our private sale conveyancing service does. If you would rather run it yourself, start with the Section 32 and the ATO certificates this week.

Frequently asked questions

Is it legal to sell my house privately in Victoria?

Yes. No Victorian law requires a real estate agent. What the law does require is that the seller’s duties are met: the signed Section 32 before the buyer signs, the due diligence checklist at inspections, and the seven-day deposit rule. Without an agent, all three sit with you.

Do I need a conveyancer to sell privately?

Not by law. But the Section 32 and contract still have to be prepared, the deposit held correctly and settlement run. A mistake in the Section 32 can let the buyer cancel, and doing it yourself leaves you without professional indemnity cover.

When does the buyer need the Section 32?

Every prospective buyer needs a copy of the Section 32 prior to signing. A buyer given a late, incomplete or incorrect statement can cancel any time before they accept title and take possession. Have it signed and ready before your first inspection.

Who holds the deposit in a private sale?

The buyer pays it to you. Within seven days it must go to your conveyancer, lawyer or estate agent, or into a special purpose account in both your names that needs both signatures to draw on.

Does the buyer get a cooling-off period in a private sale?

Yes, for most residential private sales: three clear business days from when the buyer signs, whatever the price. The buyer forfeits the greater of $100 or 0.2 per cent of the price. Auction sales and company or agent buyers are the main exceptions.

Do I need an ATO clearance certificate if I am selling my own home?

Yes. Since 1 January 2025 every Australian resident seller needs one, with no price threshold, and your home is included. Each owner applies separately, and it can take up to 28 days, so apply as soon as you decide to sell.