Hello, does anyone know when selling a property in Oz if you are required by law to have a Home Information Pack? this is the requirement from June this year in the UK.
thanks

I've just put my house up for sale in UK and was told its 1st July the new homes package comes into effect, it includes title deeds and local searches, costs about £400 so thought I would go for it before it came into effect....especially as were only selling...why would us emigrators want to spend unnecessary funds on a pack when were not buying!!!!

does the house just have to be 'on the market' by 1st july or actually have a buyer?? Reckon end of june may be a good time to chuck all our houses onto sale hey?

I know that when we have been to look at properties here that the seller has to have a report on the property like a survey as such. They pay for it and then the person who buys the house pays for the survey in with the house costs - I think it is a good idea - saves all prospective buyers from spending money on a survey for every property they are interested in.

I've viewed two houses out of about 60 that the vendor had had surveyed, and prospective buyers were welcome to buy the survey (as they were going to auction). So a nice tidy sum for the surveyor if each registered bidder paid for the survey!!

Most houses it seems to be up to the buyer to get a property inspection, pest inspection, to check with the council about future developments etc.

Trying to find information out about properties has proved very hard, I've asked estate agents about when houses were last rewired, when the water system was last updated, how old the roof is etc etc - and they can't or won't tell me. I think if I asked about what the neighbours were like, they'd laugh... Seems to be the case that if you want to know anything about the property, you have to pay for it. Which would be fine if the houses we look at in Sydney were for sale by private treaty - unfortunately most are for sale by auction so you do take the risk of paying out surveys and being outbid at auction.

Must be different for each state (sigh - how unusual) here in the ACT it works a bit differently

No home info kits in South Australia either.

I had to pay $495 for a structural survey on the house we are buying, and they didn't even do a termite report!!

In ACT we didn't know the 'go' when we bought our home - what we found out was...the house seller has to get an inspection report done on the property and land - this covers all sorts of stuff - economy rating, termite and other stuff ect.... this costs around $700 approx. when views go to look they can take a photocopy of report and let their solicitor have a look through beofre they put an offer in - should they then go ahead with the property - the report is then paid for with the fees - so the seller doesn't lose out and the buyer doesn't waste money - seems to work well but the report is only valid for a 12 month period (I think it is 12 months)

That's the first thing about the ACT I've read that makes me want to move there