The compliance items that are not on your disclosure statement

There is a particular kind of Queensland seller who does everything right and still loses money at settlement.

They get the Form 2 seller disclosure statement professionally prepared. They read it. They understand that an incomplete one hands the buyer a right to terminate any time up to settlement, which we covered in our interview with Queensland property lawyer Luke Gould. They tick that box properly, and they relax.

Then the buyer’s solicitor claims an adjustment three days before settlement for something that was never on the disclosure statement in the first place, because it was never supposed to be.

There are three of these. None of them appear on the Form 2. All of them are the seller’s problem. And every one of them is cheap to fix in advance and expensive to discover late.

Smoke alarms

This is the one that produces actual cash at settlement, and almost nobody sees it coming.

Queensland has required interconnected photoelectric smoke alarms in every bedroom, in hallways connecting bedrooms, and on every storey of any home being sold since 1 January 2022. Not recommended. Required, as a condition of selling.

Here is the part that surprises people, and it is the same asymmetry that runs through the whole Queensland regime. We asked Luke Gould, principal solicitor at Bush to Beach Legal, how it works in practice.

You are not asked to prove compliance. You are simply exposed if you are not.

The mechanics are worth being precise about, because the number is a percentage and percentages on property prices get large quickly. If the alarms are not compliant, the buyer may claim an adjustment at settlement of 0.15 per cent of the purchase price. It has to be claimed in writing before settlement. The buyer cannot terminate the contract over it and cannot claim damages beyond the adjustment.

Set that against the cost of compliance. Bringing a standard three bedroom house up to the interconnected standard is typically a few hundred dollars of hardware and an electrician’s morning. On a $1.2 million sale you are choosing between roughly that, and $1,800 handed to your buyer for nothing.

One more thing on the horizon: from 1 January 2027 the same interconnected standard applies to all domestic dwellings in Queensland, not only those being sold or leased. If you are selling before then you are already inside the rule. If you are holding, it is coming for you anyway.

Pool safety certificates

If there is a pool on the property, it has a separate regime with a separate document and a separate consequence.

You have two lawful routes. Get a pool safety certificate before settlement, or, if you cannot, give the buyer a Form 36 notice of no pool safety certificate before the contract is entered into. That second route is legitimate. What is not legitimate is doing neither.

Get the sequencing right, because it is the sequencing that bites. The Form 36 has to be given before the contract, not somewhere in the middle of it. Miss that and the buyer may be able to terminate. Hand it over properly and the obligation shifts: the buyer then has 90 days after settlement to obtain the certificate themselves, and both of you know exactly where you stand.

Note that the presence of a pool on the lot does go on your Form 2. The certificate does not. Disclosing that you have a pool is not the same as dealing with it, and a seller who reads their disclosure statement and sees the pool mentioned can very reasonably conclude the job is done.

Body corporate warranties, if you are selling a unit

The third one is the most invisible, because it lives inside a document the seller has usually stopped reading by the time they reach it.

Read the structure of that. A separate set of fields, in a different document, sourced from a different search, covering ground the disclosure statement does not cover. A seller who has diligently completed their Form 2 hits those fields, has no idea where the answers come from, and leaves them empty.

The search exists and it is orderable from the body corporate. Leaving the fields blank is a decision about risk, and the sellers making it mostly do not know they are making it.

Unit sellers should also plan for the timeline. A house disclosure statement can be turned around the same day. A unit waits on body corporate reports, which Luke puts at about a week. That is a week you want to spend before your first open home, not after an offer lands.

Why this list exists at all

Look at what these three have in common.

Not one of them requires judgement, negotiation, or a licence. Compliant alarms, a pool certificate or a properly timed Form 36, and a warranty search ordered from a body corporate. They are errands with deadlines.

And yet the fear of exactly this list is one of the main reasons Queensland sellers decide they need an agent charging a percentage. On a $900,000 sale, commission at 2.1 per cent is $18,900 plus GST. The three items above cost a few hundred dollars each and none of them are in an agent’s job description anyway. Your solicitor handles the paperwork either way. The commission is buying something else entirely, and it is worth being clear-eyed about what.

The genuinely valuable thing an agent brings to a Queensland sale is the buyer negotiation, and there is a serious argument to be had about what that is worth. It is not this list. This list is a checklist, and you are about to have it.

Your pre-listing checklist

Before your first open home:

• Smoke alarms. Interconnected photoelectric, every bedroom, hallways connecting bedrooms, every storey. Get it done and keep the invoice.
• Pool. Either a current pool safety certificate, or a Form 36 ready to give the buyer before they sign. Not after.
• Unit? Order the body corporate statutory warranty search, and allow a week.
• Form 2 seller disclosure statement, professionally prepared, with the prescribed certificates, ready to hand to anyone who walks through the door. This is the one that carries the termination right, and it is covered in full in our interview with Luke Gould.
• Rates and water notices found and sent to whoever is preparing your disclosure statement. This is the single most common reason a same-day turnaround becomes a three-day one.

None of that needs an agent. All of it needs doing. For the full process end to end, start with our guide to selling a house privately in Queensland, or read who actually prepares the contract when you sell without an agency.

Selling in Queensland and want the legal side handled properly on a fixed fee? We refer Queensland sellers to Bush to Beach Legal. We do not take a referral fee for it.

General information about Queensland property law, not legal advice, current as at September 2026. Your sale will have facts in it that this article does not. Get advice on your own circumstances. Dollar figures are worked examples on the stated sale prices, not market medians.