How do I stop people from making an offer on a property I’m trying to buy?

There is no such thing as a holding deposit when buying a house

Agents will not take the property off the market if you leave a deposit.

Signing a contract and exchanging with the agent will stop any other buyers from making an offer

This is the only way to take the property off the market! The buyer will receive a cooling-off period of five business days, which takes us to the next tip. Exchanging contracts is legally binding.
 

A five business day cooling-off period is granted to the buyer automatically when they exchange with a real estate agent. 

Watch the video below to find out more about cooling-off periods and see how you can use them to your advantage.

What is a Cooling-Off Period? (YT Short)

Ask the agent to send you the entire contract

Ask the agent to scan the whole contract and email it to you, your conveyancer and to your lender. 

The sooner your conveyancer and lender know about your purchase, the quicker they can start their processes.

Ready to get started?

If you’re buying, selling or want to transfer a property, let us help you. We offer expert property law and conveyancing across Newcastle, Maitland, Lake Macquarie, Port Stephens, Central Coast and NSW.

From contract review through to settlement, you’ll have complete confidence in our legal support, making the process of buying or selling a little easier.

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Have a question? We can help.

When you buy a residential property in NSW, you have a 5-business day cooling-off period after you exchange contracts. The cooling-off period starts as soon as you exchange and ends at 5pm on the fifth business day after the day of exchange.

We recommend engaging a conveyancer as early as possible. In NSW, conveyancing is required before you put a house on the market.

The legal work involved in preparing the sales contract, mortgage and other related documents, is called conveyancing. Unless you are a licensed conveyancer or solicitor, you’ll need to engage one.
A solicitor or conveyancer’s local knowledge of the area is always something that could prove to be useful and of a benefit to you in your sale, however, conveyancing is very widely done across NSW and knowledge of the area is not specifically required.

You’ll need either a licensed conveyancer or a solicitor to help. A very common question people ask us is ‘what is the difference between a Solicitor and Conveyancer, and which one should I use?’

Which you choose is up to you – read our article for more information.