Section 32 in Victoria: A Private Seller’s Guide to the Vendor Statement (2026)

If you’re selling your own home in Victoria, there’s one document you can’t skip: the Section 32. It’s also the one that sounds the most intimidating, and it doesn’t need to be. A conveyancer or lawyer pulls most of it together from official searches. Your job is to get the process started early, hand over a few things only you know, check it, and sign it.

We’ll go through what goes in a Section 32, who prepares it, what it costs, when your buyer needs it (including the change coming in 2027) and what happens if something in it is wrong.

This is general information, not legal advice. For your own sale, speak with a Victorian conveyancer or lawyer.

What is a Section 32?

A Section 32 (also called a vendor statement or vendor’s statement) is the legal disclosure document a seller in Victoria must give a buyer before the buyer signs the contract of sale. It’s named after section 32 of the Sale of Land Act 1962, which sets out what it has to contain. It covers the property’s title, mortgages, easements and covenants, zoning and planning controls, rates and other outgoings, recent building permits and any government notices affecting the land, with the supporting certificates attached. The seller signs it, and it can be signed electronically.

It’s a Victorian document. Queensland has its own seller disclosure statement, South Australia uses a Form 1, and NSW attaches its disclosure documents to the contract itself.

Most people call it “the Section 32” and leave it at that. You’ll also hear “vendor statement” from conveyancers and buyers’ lawyers. Same document.

What goes in a Section 32?

The Act groups the contents into topics. Not every topic applies to every property (there’s no owners corporation certificate for a freestanding house on its own title, for example), and where something does apply, your conveyancer usually attaches the official certificate rather than retyping it.

Topic	What it covers	Usually supported by
Title	Who owns the land, plus the title plan or plan of subdivision	Register search statement and title plan
Financial matters	Mortgages that won’t be cleared before the buyer takes possession, any charges on the land, and rates, taxes and other outgoings (or a statement that they won’t exceed a set amount)	Council, water and land tax certificates; mortgage details
Land use	Easements, covenants and similar restrictions; the planning scheme, zone and overlays; whether it’s in a designated bushfire prone area; whether there’s road access	Planning certificate or property report
Notices	Government notices, orders or approved proposals directly affecting the land that you know about or could reasonably be expected to know about, livestock disease or agricultural chemical notices, and any notice of compulsory acquisition	Copies of the notices
Building permits	Any building permit issued for the home in the last 7 years	Permit details
Insurance	Details of your insurance if the property isn’t at your risk until settlement, and owner-builder warranty insurance under the Building Act where it applies	Insurance details
Owners corporation	For units, townhouses and apartments: the owners corporation certificate and its accompanying documents	Owners corporation certificate
Growth areas infrastructure contribution (GAIC)	Whether this levy applies, which mainly affects land in Melbourne’s growth areas	GAIC certificate, if relevant
Services	Which of electricity, gas, water, sewerage and telephone are not connected	Your own confirmation

Consumer Affairs Victoria describes it in plainer terms: the Section 32 covers the title (including mortgages, covenants and easements), zoning, outgoings like rates, a declaration if the property is in a bushfire prone area, and the owners corporation certificate where there is one. In less common cases, such as a terms contract or a mortgage that won’t be paid off at settlement, there’s also an additional statement.

Who prepares a Section 32?

In practice, a licensed conveyancer or a lawyer. Consumer Affairs Victoria says the statement is usually prepared by your legal practitioner or conveyancer, and most will prepare the contract of sale at the same time. Selling privately makes no difference here. An agent doesn’t prepare it in an agent-led sale either.

Can you prepare it yourself? The law requires the statement to be signed by the seller, not prepared by a professional, so it isn’t illegal. But CAV points out that if you do your own conveyancing you won’t have a conveyancer’s or lawyer’s professional indemnity insurance behind you if something goes wrong, and suggests using one if you’re not confident. On a sale worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, with a buyer’s right to walk away riding on the details, that’s a fair warning. Our guide to whether you need a conveyancer to sell privately goes through the wider role they play.

What your conveyancer will need from you

The searches come from councils, water authorities and government registers. A few things only you know:

Your mortgage details (lender and loan number), so they can arrange the discharge
Any building work done in the last 7 years, and whether it had a permit
Any owner-builder work, and the insurance that went with it
Any notices or letters from council, a water authority or another government body about the property
Which services are connected, and anything unusual (a septic system, a shared driveway, no gas)
Your owners corporation manager’s details, if you’re in a unit or townhouse
What’s included in the sale (fixtures, chattels like a dishwasher or curtains) for the contract

Then read the draft before you sign it. You’re the one who knows the property, and you’re the one signing a statement that says it’s accurate.

When does the buyer need the Section 32?

Under the law as it stands in October 2026, the buyer must receive the Section 32 before they sign the contract of sale. There’s no current legal requirement to have it before you advertise, unlike NSW, where a contract has to exist before a home can be marketed. The one document you do need from the moment you offer the property for sale is the due diligence checklist, covered further down.

But “before they sign” is the legal minimum, not the smart timing. Buyers’ conveyancers ask for the Section 32 at the first serious sign of interest, often after a single inspection. If yours isn’t ready, the conversation stalls while you wait a week or two for searches, and that’s exactly the gap where a keen buyer keeps looking. Most private sellers in Victoria should have the Section 32 and contract signed off before the listing goes live, so they can send it the same day someone asks.

What’s changing in 2027

Victoria has already passed a law that moves the deadline earlier. Under the Consumer Legislation Amendment Act 2026, once the change commences (by proclamation, and no later than 1 June 2027; the Real Estate Institute of Victoria lists it as effective 1 June 2027), sellers will have to make the Section 32 available to any prospective buyer who asks for it:

for a private sale: from 14 days after the property is first publicly advertised
for an auction or fixed-date sale: from 14 days before the auction or the fixed date
in any case: before the buyer signs. You’ll also have to tell a buyer in writing about any changes to the statement before they sign, for example if a new council notice arrives mid campaign.

It isn’t in force yet, so it doesn’t change anything for a home you’re selling this spring. But if you list next winter (or earlier, if it’s proclaimed sooner), it will apply, and “ready before you list” becomes the only sensible plan.

How much does a Section 32 cost?

There’s no set government fee for preparing one, so the cost is whatever your conveyancer or lawyer charges, plus the searches. As a rough guide from what Victorian conveyancing firms publish in 2026:

Many firms bundle the Section 32 and contract into a fixed conveyancing fee for the whole sale. Published fixed fees for a straightforward sale commonly run from about $660 to around $1,400.
Searches and certificates (title, plan, council, water, land tax, planning) are charged on top as disbursements, typically a few hundred dollars, more if extra certificates are needed.
For a unit or townhouse, add the owners corporation certificate. The law caps what the owners corporation can charge for it: as at 2026-27 the maximum for a standard 6 to 10 business day turnaround is 9.64 fee units, about $166 plus GST, with higher caps if you need it faster.

Ask for a written, fixed-fee quote that lists the disbursements, so you can compare quotes properly. And ask whether the Section 32 fee is charged upfront or taken from your sale proceeds at settlement, because firms do it differently. Our costs of selling a house guide puts conveyancing alongside everything else you’ll pay.

If you list with PropertyNow, you can order Victorian contract preparation at checkout (pricing is on our add-ons page). It covers the electronic contract and the main searches a Section 32 draws on: the title search, planning certificate, roads certificate, water information statement, bushfire management certificate, EPA certificate and one dealing on title. Some certificates depend on your property and aren’t in the base price, such as a council land certificate, a land tax certificate for an investment property, a GAIC certificate, or a regional or rural water statement, along with extra dealings on title, fast-track fees and identity verification. Inclusions can change, so check the current inclusions and exclusions shown at checkout before you buy. If you’d like the same firm to handle the whole conveyance through to settlement, that’s arranged separately and paid from your settlement funds. Or use a conveyancer or lawyer you already trust.

What happens if the Section 32 is wrong or missing?

If you don’t give the buyer a signed Section 32 before they sign, or the statement contains false information or leaves out something it must include, the buyer can generally end (rescind) the contract at any time up to settlement (strictly, until they accept title and become entitled to possession or rent). Consumer Affairs Victoria puts it bluntly: a contract is not binding on a buyer if a Section 32 is not provided or is incomplete or inaccurate. A buyer may also take legal action against the seller.

There’s a narrow safety net. A court can refuse to let a buyer rescind if the seller acted honestly and reasonably and ought fairly to be excused, and the buyer is substantially as well off as if everything had been disclosed. That’s a defence argued in court, not something to plan around. Knowingly or recklessly giving a false statement, or not giving one, is also an offence. And you can’t contract your way out: a clause that tries to remove these obligations has no effect.

None of this should put you off. Section 32 problems usually come from things that are easy to avoid: an old certificate on a long campaign, a building permit nobody mentioned, a council notice sitting in a drawer. Tell your conveyancer everything, read the draft, and ask them to refresh the searches if your campaign runs for months. CAV notes that statements are sometimes prepared up to 12 months before a sale, and the information has to be accurate when the buyer receives it.

A Section 32 also isn’t a building or pest report. Buyers arrange their own inspections, and what you tell them in your ad or at an inspection still has to be accurate, whatever the statement says.

Section 32, Property Price Statement and due diligence checklist: what’s the difference?

Victorian sellers deal with three documents that are easy to mix up.

Document	What it is	Who it’s for	When
Section 32 (vendor statement)	The legal disclosure about the property: title, outgoings, planning, notices, permits	Any buyer about to sign	Before the buyer signs (and, from 1 June 2027 at the latest, available earlier on request)
Property Price Statement	The pricing document: indicative price and comparable sales (it replaced the Statement of Information from 1 October 2026)	Buyers looking at the advertised price	Linked next to the price in the listing
Due diligence checklist	A standard CAV checklist that helps buyers know what to investigate	All prospective buyers	From the moment the home is offered for sale: at inspections and online

The due diligence checklist is the easy one to forget when you sell privately. CAV asks sellers to have copies at every open inspection and to link to the checklist on any website they maintain. Our guide to Victoria’s new underquoting laws covers the Property Price Statement and the reserve price rules for auctions and fixed-date sales.

Your Section 32 checklist for a private sale

Choose your conveyancer or lawyer before you book photos, and ask for a fixed-fee quote that includes searches.
Hand over what only you know: mortgage details, building work and permits from the last 7 years, owner-builder insurance, any notices, services, and owners corporation contacts.
Let them order the searches (title, council, water, land tax, planning, and the owners corporation certificate if relevant).
Read the draft Section 32 and contract carefully, and query anything that doesn’t match what you know about the property.
Sign the Section 32 (electronic signing is allowed) and approve the contract.
Have the due diligence checklist ready for open inspections and link it from any website you run for the sale.
Send the Section 32 to buyers as soon as they ask, make sure every buyer has it before they sign, and keep a dated record (an email is ideal) of when each one received it.
Refresh the searches on a long campaign, and tell your conveyancer straight away if anything changes, like a new council notice.

The bottom line

The Section 32 is a disclosure document, and a private sale doesn’t change a word of it. A conveyancer or lawyer does the heavy lifting; you supply the facts only you know, read it, and sign. Get it ready before you list, keep it current, and it becomes the document that makes buyers comfortable signing rather than a reason for them to walk away.

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Frequently asked questions

What is a Section 32 in Victoria?

It’s the vendor statement a seller must give a buyer before the buyer signs the contract of sale, under section 32 of the Sale of Land Act 1962. It discloses the title, mortgages, easements and covenants, planning and zoning, rates and outgoings, recent building permits, notices affecting the land and, for units, the owners corporation certificate.

Who prepares the Section 32 when you sell privately?

Usually a licensed conveyancer or a lawyer, often together with the contract of sale. The seller must sign it. Selling privately doesn’t change this, because agents don’t prepare the Section 32 in an agent-led sale either.

How much does a Section 32 cost in Victoria?

There’s no government fee for preparing one. Many conveyancers include it in a fixed fee for the whole sale, with published fees commonly from about $660 to around $1,400, plus a few hundred dollars of searches. An owners corporation certificate, where needed, is capped at 9.64 fee units (about $166 plus GST) for a standard turnaround in 2026-27.

Do I need a Section 32 before I advertise?

Not under the current law: it must be given before the buyer signs. A 2026 law will require it to be available on request from 14 days after you first advertise a private sale, or 14 days before an auction or fixed-date sale, from 1 June 2027 at the latest. Having it ready before you list is good practice either way. Separately, the due diligence checklist must be available from the moment you offer the property for sale.

Can a buyer pull out if the Section 32 is wrong?

Generally yes. If it’s missing, false or incomplete, the buyer can usually rescind the contract up to settlement (strictly, until they accept title and become entitled to possession). A court can refuse that only if the seller acted honestly and reasonably and the buyer is substantially as well off as if everything had been disclosed.

Does a Section 32 expire?

There’s no fixed expiry date. The information has to be accurate when the buyer receives it, so if your sale runs for months, ask your conveyancer to refresh the searches.

Is a Section 32 the same as a contract of sale?

No. The contract sets out the terms of the sale (price, deposit, settlement date, conditions). The Section 32 is a separate disclosure statement, usually given with the contract. Once a buyer signs a private sale contract, they usually have a cooling-off period of three clear business days, which our cooling-off guide explains.