The 2026 NSW Contract for Sale: What Changed and Why It Matters
A new edition of the standard contract has been compulsory since 1 June 2026. Most of it is housekeeping. One change is not.
Every residential sale in NSW runs on the same standard contract, published jointly by the Law Society of NSW and the Real Estate Institute of NSW. It was last rewritten in 2022. The 2026 edition landed on 2 March 2026 and became compulsory on 1 June. If you’re buying or selling this year, here’s what’s different and the one part worth actually checking.
At a glance
- The 2026 edition replaced the 2022 edition and has been mandatory since 1 June 2026.
- The change that drove it is the cooling-off notice, which now has new prescribed wording.
- Inclusions were modernised: solar batteries and EV chargers are in, the TV antenna is out.
- A new warning covers the anti-money laundering obligations that started on 1 July 2026.
- Two clauses were clarified after a 2025 Supreme Court decision.
Why a new edition at all?
The trigger was the Conveyancing and Real Property Amendment Act 2025, which commenced on 15 August 2025. It widened the rules governing options over residential property so they cover not just options to buy, called call options, but also options that compel someone to buy, called put options.
That sounds like a niche problem, and for most buyers and sellers it is. But it required a change to the prescribed cooling-off notice, and the cooling-off notice is printed inside every residential contract in the state. Change the notice and you need a new edition of the contract.
The cooling-off notice: the change that matters
The prescribed statement under section 66X of the Conveyancing Act lists the situations where a buyer gets no cooling-off period. One of those is where the contract comes about through exercising an option. The old wording said “an option to purchase the property”. The 2026 wording drops those last four words.
The practical effect is that the exclusion now reaches put options as well as call options, resolving an uncertainty the Supreme Court had flagged. For an ordinary private treaty purchase it changes nothing about your rights: still five business days, still ending at 5pm, still a 0.25% forfeit if you use it.
What it does mean is that a contract exchanged on or after 1 June 2026 carrying the old notice doesn’t meet the statutory requirement. Contracts sit in drawers for months, so this is worth checking rather than assuming.
“Most of the 2026 edition is tidying up. The cooling-off notice is the part that has a deadline attached.”
Inclusions caught up with how people live
The inclusions list on the front page is what the buyer gets with the house, and it’s the source of more arguments at settlement than almost anything else. The 2026 edition updated it:
- Solar power battery has been added as a tick box in its own right, separate from solar panels
- TV antenna has become internet/TV receiver, which covers satellite dishes and similar equipment
- EV charger continues as a listed inclusion
If you have a home battery and you’re selling, this now needs a deliberate decision rather than an argument later. The same goes for buyers: if the listing photos showed a battery on the garage wall, check the box is actually ticked before you exchange. A tick box is cheap. A dispute the week before settlement is not.
In plain English
Anything ticked as an inclusion comes with the house. Anything not ticked doesn’t, no matter what anyone said at the open home. The contract wins over the conversation every time, which is exactly why the list is worth two minutes of your attention.
A new anti-money laundering warning
The 2026 edition adds a warning about the AML/CTF regime that started on 1 July 2026. From that date, conveyancers, solicitors, real estate agents and other professionals providing a designated service have obligations including customer due diligence and reporting to AUSTRAC.
For you as a client, this is the reason we verify your identity before we can act. It isn’t optional and it isn’t us being difficult. Our AML questions answered article covers what we need from you and why.
Two clauses clarified after a court decision
In 2025 the NSW Supreme Court decided Ahmau Developments Pty Ltd v Preet, and Justice Parker pointed out an overlap between clause 28, which deals with unregistered plans, and clause 29, which deals with conditional contracts. The 2026 edition makes clear that clause 29 doesn’t apply where clause 28 already does, and harmonises some inconsistent language across clauses 12, 24, 28 and 29.
This matters mainly for off the plan and unregistered plan purchases. If that’s you, it’s a genuine improvement, because ambiguity between two clauses is the kind of thing that only surfaces when something has already gone wrong.
What didn’t change
Worth saying, because clients often assume a new edition means new obligations. The smoke alarm and loose-fill asbestos warning notices on page 5 are unchanged. The vendor’s prescribed warranties are unchanged. The list of documents that must be attached to a contract is substantially the same, with some terminology updates to match Sydney Water’s document names and the Conveyancing (Sale of Land) Regulation 2022.
Cooling-off itself, in substance, is unchanged: five business days for a standard residential purchase, ten for off the plan, 0.25% forfeited if you rescind.
Got a contract drafted before June? Send it to us and we’ll tell you which edition it’s on.
What to actually do
Selling. If your contract was prepared before June 2026 and hasn’t exchanged, it needs updating. We’ll handle it, but tell us it exists.
Buying. Check the edition marked at the foot of the contract pages, and check the inclusions list against what you saw at the inspection.
Either way. Don’t sign a contract nobody has read for you. The edition is the easy part to get right.
The short version
The 2026 edition has been compulsory since 1 June. The cooling-off notice wording changed and an old-edition contract exchanged after that date doesn’t comply. Inclusions now cover solar batteries and internet/TV receivers. There’s a new AML warning, and two clauses were tidied up for off the plan purchases. Everything else works the way it did.
Need a contract prepared or reviewed?
Talk to Justin, Julie, Amanda or Nicole. We prepare every contract on the current edition, and we’ll tell you plainly what’s in the one you’ve been handed.
