The Department of Justice and Attorney-General has developed legislation to replace the State’s outdated property laws.
Introducing the new laws into Parliament, Attorney-General, Shannon Fentiman said they had been developed to modernise property laws with contemporary language that reflected current commercial practice.
“The Property Law Bill 2023 will replace the current Property Law Act 1974, which has not been comprehensively reformed since it was introduced,” Ms Fentiman said.
“The Bill is based largely on the recommendations of the Commercial and Property Law Research Centre at the Queensland University of Technology (QUT), following its broad-ranging, independent review of Queensland’s property law.”
She said the Bill would implement a statutory seller disclosure scheme, broadly in line with the recommendations of the QUT’s Final Report: Seller Disclosure in Queensland (2017).
“The new scheme will make it mandatory for a seller of freehold land to disclose relevant information to the buyer in a single document, along with any prescribed certificates, including a body corporate certificate, where relevant,” Ms Fentiman said.
“The scheme will also prominently alert buyers to the need to undertake their own due diligence on flood information, and direct buyers to appropriate resources to access a property’s flood information.”
She said this was legislation that would most likely affect everyone at some stage of their lives when they owned or dealt with property.
“Owning and dealing with property, establishing co-ownership arrangements, signing and enforcing lease agreements, and managing mortgages, are major transactions that affect Queenslanders everywhere,” the Minister said.
“The Government is taking action to ensure our State’s property laws are modern and fit for purpose.”
