Non-Standard General Conditions

by Peter Mericka B.A., LL.B
Real Estate Lawyer
Qualified Practising Conveyancer Victoria
Director Lawyers Real Estate Pty Ltd

At Lawyers Conveyancing we check a lot of real estate contracts as part of our pre-purchase legal advice service. Recently we have seen an increase in the number of contracts where the General Conditions have been changed so as to render them non-standard.

An alarmingly common trend is to change the standard finance condition so that the purchaser has no time beyond the finance approval date to cancel the contract. We noticed that estate agent Ian Reed, had been imposing a similar condition on consumers some time ago, and this was discussed in an article titled Estate Agent's Finance Clause.

The most recent example is the contract prepared by Williamstown's solicitors John Anile Pty. The contract contains a full set of Special Conditions (so-called because they are not standard). However, an unsuspecting purchaser or purchaser's legal representative may not pay enough attention to the General Conditions of the contract to notice that the clause giving the purchaser two days to end the contract has been removed from the standard finance condition.

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