Nick Hallam
Published 28 October 2026 · Updated 28 October 2026
A conditional contract turns on a date and a notice, not on the condition itself. Finance and building and pest clauses require the buyer to act by a stated time, and in most forms nothing ends automatically when that time passes. MatterFirst, a legal practice management platform for Australian law firms, diarises each date against the matter.
That distinction is where conditional contracts go wrong. A file can hold a bank's refusal letter and a damning pest report and still be bound, because what the contract asked for was a notice, served in a particular way, before a particular hour.
The three conditions that carry a deadline
Most residential conveyancing conditions fall into three groups.
Finance. The buyer must obtain loan approval by a stated date. The obligation is active: apply, pursue the application, and tell the other side what happened.
Building and pest. The buyer must obtain an inspection report by a stated date and decide what to do about it. The decision, not the report, is what the contract is waiting for.
Sale of the buyer's existing property. The least standardised of the three, almost always a special condition, and the one most likely to carry a bespoke notice regime.
Alongside them sit the withdrawal rights the legislation imposes whether the parties think about them or not. In some states those do the work a finance condition does elsewhere, covered in cooling off periods in Australian conveyancing.
What each jurisdiction requires
The standard forms differ, so "is it subject to finance?" has a different answer depending on where the land is. The table is drawn from each jurisdiction's regulator, handbook or legislation, checked on 28 October 2026.
| Jurisdiction | What applies, and what the buyer has to do by when | Source |
|---|---|---|
| NSW | No standard statutory finance condition: the cooling off right does much of the same work. Rescind by 5pm on the fifth business day after exchange, forfeiting 0.25 per cent of the price. Ten business days off the plan. None at auction, or where a certificate under s 66W of the Conveyancing Act 1919 is given at or before exchange. | NSW Government |
| VIC | A private sale can be made subject to finance approval, the sale of an existing property, or a satisfactory building or pest inspection. Nominate a lender in the relevant section if it is subject to finance. Cooling off runs three clear business days, with $100 or 0.2 per cent of the price, whichever is greater, deducted. Not at public auction. | Consumer Affairs Victoria |
| QLD | The REIQ finance clause applies only if the finance amount, financier and finance date are completed in the reference schedule, and the inspection clause only if the inspection date is. Obtain the reports by the inspection date and give notice by 5pm on that date if terminating. If no notice is given, the seller may terminate, and that is the seller's only remedy. | Queensland Law Handbook |
| SA | Conditions are negotiated. Cooling off runs two clear business days from the later of signing and service of the Form 1. A defective Form 1 does not start the clock, and an amended one gives a further two clear business days. Notice must be written and signed by the purchaser, who carries the onus of proving service under s 5(3). | SA Law Handbook |
| WA | The offer and acceptance has a "Finance Clause Is Applicable" box, and the buyer may name a preferred lender. The buyer must use best efforts and apply to at least one lender, give written evidence of the application if asked in writing, and immediately notify the seller or agent in writing whether it was approved or refused. No mandatory cooling off. | Consumer Protection WA |
| TAS | At auction a buyer cannot make the contract subject to conditions such as finance, and there is no cooling off, so conditions have to be settled before bidding. The guidance checked does not address private sales. | Consumer, Building and Occupational Services |
| ACT | The seller carries the inspection burden. The building and compliance inspection report must come from an inspection no earlier than three months before the property was first advertised, and a pest report is required where the home has been occupied, with exceptions including certain unit classes and never occupied residences. Documents must be available whenever an offer may be made, maximum penalty 10 penalty units. Cooling off ends 5pm on the fifth working day. | Civil Law (Sale of Residential Property) Act 2003 |
| NT | Contracts other than auction sales must give the buyer four business days of cooling off, which may be waived, reduced or extended by agreement with the seller. | NT Government |
Two patterns stand out. Queensland puts the conditional structure inside the reference schedule, so a blank box is not neutral: leave the inspection date out and the clause does not apply. The ACT runs the inspection obligation the other way around, placing it on the seller before the property is advertised rather than on the buyer after signing.
Approved is not the same as unconditional
The most common way a finance condition fails is that everyone treats a conditional approval as an approval. Consumer Protection WA is explicit: where a lender places conditions on an approval, such as an acceptable valuation or the sale of another property, the buyer should not assume finance has been approved, and it is approved only when all of the lender's conditions have been met.
The same regulator warns about the opposite trap in the drafting. Some finance conditions are written so that an offer of a loan from any financial institution or mortgage broker counts as finance being granted, binding a buyer to terms they would never have accepted. Both are file problems before they are legal problems, and the answer is the same: read the approval rather than filing it, and record the lender's outstanding conditions as their own dated items.
The notice is the deliverable, not the report
Queensland shows the mechanism most clearly. The buyer must obtain the reports by the inspection date, but what the contract waits for is a notice by 5pm on that date. If the buyer does not give one, the seller may terminate, and on the handbook's description that is the seller's only remedy.
Three things belong in the diary for one condition:
- The date the report or approval is expected, early enough to leave room to read it.
- The date the decision has to be made internally, a day or two before the contract date.
- The contractual notice deadline, with the hour, because 5pm is not the end of the day.
A system that holds only the third will produce files that are technically compliant and practically rushed.
A missed date does not end the contract
Consumer Protection WA states that even where finance has not been obtained, the contract may still be enforceable, and that a party will need to give appropriate notice to void it. The deadline can also be extended if both sides agree to amend the contract.
A passed deadline opens a window rather than closing a matter, and the window has its own rules: who may act, in what form, and whether the right is lost by continuing to perform. Diarising the condition date alone is not enough. The file needs the date after the date.
Business days, clear business days, working days
Three different counts appear in the material above, and they are not interchangeable.
- Business days in NSW run the cooling off period to 5pm on the fifth business day after exchange.
- Clear business days in SA exclude the day of service of the Form 1 as well as weekends and public holidays, so two clear business days is rarely two calendar days.
- Working days in the ACT run the cooling off period to 5pm on the fifth working day.
Add public holidays that differ by state and by region, and manual counting becomes the most reliable source of error in a conveyancing file. It is the problem set out in limitation dates and diarising, with the same answer: count by rule, not by wall calendar.
How MatterFirst handles condition dates
MatterFirst is a legal practice management platform for Australian law firms, built by North Cape Technology in Melbourne. Matters can be recorded in all eight Australian jurisdictions, so a conveyancing file carries the state it belongs to rather than a generic template.
Matter management provides custom matter types, board and list views, role-based contacts and calendar-synced key dates, so the finance date, the inspection date and the notice hour sit on the matter rather than in somebody's inbox. Obligation rules calculate limitation and key dates and cite the governing statute, such as Limitation Act 1969 (NSW) s 14(1), so a date can be checked against its source rather than taken on trust. Automations run trigger, condition and action rules, including generating a document as a workflow step, so the notice is produced the moment a decision is recorded.
Document AI extracts key terms from an uploaded contract, flags risks and connects the result to the matter workflow, and custom extraction rules let a firm define its own fields: for a conveyancing practice, usually the finance date, the inspection date, the settlement date and the special conditions. Document generation is deterministic by default, built from merge fields, matter data projections, clause library entries and signature blocks, with AI used only where a section genuinely calls for synthesis. Generated documents file on the matter and can be emailed, shared to the client portal or routed for e-signature.
Trust accounting is built for Australian jurisdictions, with a compliance review workflow covering NSW, VIC, QLD and WA. Those four, not all eight. Data and AI processing are hosted in the AWS region the firm chooses, Sydney by default for Australian firms, as set out on the security page. Xero, Stripe, Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace connect self-serve. PEXA and InfoTrack are listed as coming soon, so the e-settlement workspace is still worked in PEXA itself. Pricing is per workspace, from $199 per month with users included.
Comparing practice management systems
Facts below come from each vendor's own public pages, checked on 28 October 2026. "Not published" means those pages did not state it, not that the product cannot do it.
| Product | Date rules that cite the governing statute | Trust accounting, as published | Pricing model, as published | Hosting region, as published |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| MatterFirst | Obligation rules calculate limitation and key dates and cite the statute, for example Limitation Act 1969 (NSW) s 14(1) | Built for Australian jurisdictions, compliance review covering NSW, VIC, QLD and WA | Per workspace, from $199 per month, users included | AWS region chosen by the firm, Sydney by default |
| LEAP | Not published. The Australian features page describes managing critical court dates and deadlines | "in-built trust accounting (Law Society certified)" | Not published on that page | Not published on that page |
| Smokeball | Not published. The Australian features page describes "Every court date, deadline, and client appointment in one calendar" | Trust accounts and retainers, without state detail on that page | Per user: Bill from $59, Boost from $129, Grow from $249 per month, Prosper+ on request | Not published on that page |
| Clio | Not published in the pages checked | Certified by the Law Society of New South Wales as compliant with the Legal Profession Uniform General Rules 2015 | Per user per month, four plans on its Australian pricing page | Not published in the pages checked |
| Actionstep | Not published. The Australian page describes calendaring that "keeps lawyers up to date on key dates, appointments, hearings and more" | Cloud-based trust and client accounting, without state detail | Not published on that page | "Backed by the industry leading Amazon Web Services (AWS)", region not stated |
Sources: LEAP, Smokeball, Actionstep, and Clio's Australian trust accounting and pricing pages.
Who this suits, and who it does not
MatterFirst suits Australian firms of roughly two to twenty fee earners doing volume conveyancing alongside other work, where the value is in the same workflow reaching every file and the dates being calculated rather than remembered. It suits firms in NSW, VIC, QLD or WA that want the trust compliance review workflow, and firms treating onshore hosting as a requirement.
It suits a firm less well if the practice depends on a PEXA or InfoTrack connection inside the practice management system today, since both are listed as coming soon, or if the firm's accounting runs on something other than Xero. Those are limits worth knowing before an evaluation. The evaluation checklist sets out the questions to put to any vendor, including this one.
FAQ
Does a subject to finance clause end the contract automatically if the bank says no? Usually not. Consumer Protection WA states that even where finance has not been obtained the contract may still be enforceable, and a party will need to give appropriate notice to void it. Check who may give that notice, and in what form.
Is getting the building and pest report the same as giving notice? No. Under the Queensland REIQ contract described in the Queensland Law Handbook, the buyer must give notice by 5pm on the inspection date to terminate on an unsatisfactory report, and if no notice is given the seller may terminate.
Does MatterFirst calculate conveyancing condition dates for me? It calculates limitation and key dates through obligation rules that cite the governing statute, and matters can be recorded in all eight Australian jurisdictions. Key dates sync to the calendar, and automations can generate the notice document as a workflow step.
Does MatterFirst handle Western Australian trust accounting? Trust accounting is built for Australian jurisdictions, and the compliance review workflow covers NSW, VIC, QLD and WA. If your trust account is in SA, TAS, ACT or NT, ask about the review workflow before you buy.
Does MatterFirst connect to PEXA or InfoTrack? Not today. Four integrations connect self-serve: Xero, Stripe, Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace. PEXA and InfoTrack are listed as coming soon. There is also a documented REST API with webhooks.
What does MatterFirst cost for a small conveyancing practice? Pricing is per workspace. Solo is $199 per month or $1,990 per year, with one user and an A$100 monthly AI balance. Practice is $649 per month or $6,490 per year, with four users and an A$280 balance. Extra users start at $139 per user per month. The AI allowance is a dollar balance drawn down by metered AI work, not credits, and deterministic document generation draws nothing. See the pricing page and how the balance is metered.
The short version
A conditional contract is a set of dated obligations, not a safety net. The report is not the notice, a conditional approval is not an approval, and a passed deadline opens a window rather than closing the matter. Record the condition date, the decision date and the notice hour separately, count the days by rule, and keep evidence of service: in South Australia the purchaser carries the onus of proving it.
Related posts
Retail lease disclosure statements in each Australian state and territory: how far ahead, and what happens if you are late
A landlord must give a prospective retail tenant a disclosure statement before the lease is entered into: 14 days ahead in Victoria and the ACT, seven in NSW, Queensland, WA, Tasmania and the NT, and before signing in South Australia. The lead time, the remedy and the waivers, jurisdiction by jurisdiction.
GuidesGST on an Australian property sale: when it applies, the margin scheme, going concern and farmland
Most residential conveyances carry no GST, but new residential premises, vacant land and commercial property sold by a registered entity are taxable. A practical guide to the four treatments, the going concern and farmland exemptions, the margin scheme agreement that must exist before settlement, and what the file has to record.