Selling a property from a deceased estate: probate, transmission applications and what each Australian registry requires

Before a deceased estate property can be transferred to a buyer, the land register must stop naming a dead person. Surviving joint tenants lodge a survivorship or notice of death form. Sole owners and tenants in common need a grant and a transmission application. MatterFirst, a practice management platform for Australian law firms, records matters in all eight jurisdictions.

That sentence about the register is where deceased estate sales go wrong. The contract gets signed, the client is told settlement is four weeks away, and then somebody opens the title and finds a sole proprietor who died eleven months ago with no grant applied for. The sale is not impossible. The timetable is.

This guide sets out what each register requires, which form does the work, and the two dates that belong in the file from week one.

Two paths, and the title decides which one

Everything follows from how the deceased held the land.

Joint tenancy. The interest passes to the surviving joint tenants by survivorship. It does not form part of the estate, and in general no grant of probate or letters of administration is needed to clear the register. The survivor lodges a short application supported by evidence of death, and the title then shows them alone.

Sole ownership, or tenancy in common. There is no survivorship. The deceased's interest passes under the will, or on intestacy, and the register cannot be changed without a grant. The executor or administrator lodges a transmission application and is registered as personal representative, or in some cases the beneficiary is registered directly.

Check the tenancy on a current title search before you give the client any date. The difference between these two paths is often the difference between a four week settlement and a six month one.

What each jurisdiction calls it

Terminology is not consistent across the country, which matters when a firm works in more than one state.

Sources: NSW Registrar General's Guidelines, Land Use Victoria, the Titles Queensland practice manual, Land Services SA, Landgate DEC-03, Access Canberra, the NT Land Titles Office and the Land Titles Act 1980 (Tas). Form versions and fees change, so check the registry's current page before lodging.

Two practical notes. Victoria has flagged survivorship applications lodged with the deceased named as the applicant, which leaves the deceased on the register and removes the survivor, so the direction of the application is worth a second read. In NSW, an electronic transmission application by a devisee, beneficiary or next of kin needs duty verified by Revenue NSW before lodgement, a step that sits outside your own workflow and takes its own time.

Probate is the long pole, so stop promising dates around it

A firm cannot control when a grant issues. It can control whether the client was told a settlement date that depended on one.

The sequence that holds up is: current title search first, tenancy confirmed, then the grant application if the estate route applies, then the transmission application, then the transfer. The transmission is commonly lodged with or immediately before the transfer, so the register moves from the deceased to the personal representative to the buyer in one lodgement sequence rather than two separated by weeks.

Electronic lodgement constrains this too. In Victoria, transfers of land and survivorship applications have been required to be lodged electronically since 1 March 2018, with narrow exceptions.

The honest answer to "when can we settle" in week one is conditional: a date range tied to the grant, with the registry step costed into it, and a note on the file recording what the client was told. That beats a confident date that slips twice.

Two numbers worth getting right

Transfer duty in NSW. A transfer or transmission application to a beneficiary from a deceased estate attracts concessional duty of $100 under section 63 of the Duties Act 1997, where the beneficiary takes the property in accordance with the terms of the will. Revenue NSW's position is that where beneficiaries agree to vary the will's terms, the transfer is no longer in conformity with it, and ad valorem duty applies to an appropriation in excess of entitlement. See Revenue NSW on deceased estate transfers and Revenue Ruling DUT 046. Other jurisdictions treat this differently, so check the relevant revenue office.

The CGT two year date. The ATO's position is that you meet the disposal requirement for an inherited dwelling if you dispose of the property under a contract that settles within two years of the deceased's death, and it does not matter whether the property was used as a main residence or to produce income during that window. The two year limit is extended where disposal is delayed by exceptional circumstances outside your control. See the ATO guidance on extensions to the two year ownership period. The exemption generally does not apply where the deceased or the beneficiary is a foreign resident.

That second date is the one most worth automating. It is calculable from a single fact, the date of death, and nobody notices it has passed until a client asks why there is a tax bill. It belongs in the system as a diarised obligation on the day the matter opens, not in a practitioner's memory.

What the file has to prove years later

A deceased estate file gets looked at again. Beneficiaries fall out, a sibling questions the sale price, an auditor asks who authorised a trust withdrawal. The file needs the grant, the death certificate, identity and authority verification for the executor who signed, the registry dealing details, the duty assessment, the costs disclosure given to the executor in their representative capacity, and a record of what the beneficiaries were told and when.

That is more documents, more parties and more dates than a standard sale, which is the shape of matter where a shared system beats a practitioner's own filing habits.

How MatterFirst handles a deceased estate sale

MatterFirst is a legal practice management platform for Australian law firms, built by North Cape Technology in Melbourne.

Matter management supports custom matter types, so a deceased estate sale is its own type with its own fields rather than a conveyancing file with notes in it, and role-based contacts record executor, administrator, beneficiary and deceased separately instead of overloading a client field. Matters can be recorded in all eight Australian jurisdictions, which matters when the deceased held land in two states.

The obligations engine calculates limitation and key dates and cites the governing statute alongside them, in the form of a citation such as the Limitation Act 1969 (NSW) section 14(1). Key dates sync to the calendar, so the two year CGT date and the grant follow-up sit where a person will see them.

Document AI extracts key terms from uploaded documents and flags risks, and custom extraction rules let a firm define the fields it wants pulled from its own paperwork rather than a generic set. Automations run trigger, condition and action rules, including generating a document as a workflow step. Document generation builds from sections that are deterministic by default, merge fields, matter data projections and clause library entries, with AI used only where a section genuinely calls for synthesis, and outputs branded PDF and Word. Uploaded Word precedents are merged with matter data and kept whole.

The client portal gives an executor a place to upload documents, track progress and approve invoices. Trust accounting is built for Australian jurisdictions, with a compliance review workflow covering NSW, VIC, QLD and WA. Application, database and document storage sit in Sydney, as set out on the security page.

Pricing is per workspace, from $199 per month with users included, and every paid plan includes the client portal, automations and a monthly AI balance in Australian dollars that metered AI work draws down. Deterministic work, such as generating a document with no AI sections, draws down nothing. See pricing and how the AI balance is metered.

How the platforms compare

The cells below come from each vendor's own public pages, checked this session.

Smokeball figures are from its Australian pricing page and Actionstep's from its pricing page. LEAP's and Clio's Australian pricing pages could not be retrieved this session, so those cells say "Not verified" rather than carrying a number from a review site. Confirm any of this against the vendor's current page, and put the same questions to every vendor. The evaluation checklist sets out what to ask.

Who this suits, and who it does not

MatterFirst suits Australian firms of roughly two to twenty fee earners doing conveyancing and estates work, who need onshore hosting, state-based trust accounting and document generation driven by their own precedents.

It is not the right answer for everyone. The trust compliance review workflow covers NSW, VIC, QLD and WA, so a firm whose trust account sits in SA, TAS, ACT or NT should ask directly where that leaves them before committing. Four integrations connect self-serve today: Xero, Stripe, Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace. A firm whose workflow depends on a different provider connecting without setup work should confirm current availability rather than assume it, and everything else goes through a documented REST API with webhooks. A firm that wants an AI assistant connected to its matter files should read the MCP documentation first, since that connection is off until an administrator switches it on and carries per-connection permission profiles and per-tool approval.

Frequently asked questions

Do I need probate to sell a property from a deceased estate? It depends on how the land was held. If the deceased was a joint tenant, the interest passes by survivorship and in general no grant is needed to clear the register. If they held solely or as a tenant in common, a grant of probate or letters of administration is required before the register can be changed.

What is the difference between a survivorship application and a transmission application? A survivorship application removes a deceased joint tenant and leaves the survivors on title. A transmission application registers the personal representative, or in some cases the beneficiary, where the interest formed part of the estate. The names differ by jurisdiction, as the table above sets out.

Can an executor sign a contract of sale before the transmission application is registered? Signing and registering are different steps, and the register cannot pass title to the buyer while the deceased is still named. In practice the transmission is lodged with or immediately before the transfer. Get advice on the particular estate rather than relying on a general answer.

How much transfer duty does a beneficiary pay in NSW? Concessional duty of $100 applies under section 63 of the Duties Act 1997 where the beneficiary takes the property in accordance with the terms of the will. Varying those terms can take the transfer outside the concession.

Does selling within two years of death avoid capital gains tax? The ATO's position is that the disposal requirement for an inherited dwelling is met if the contract settles within two years of death, with extensions available where exceptional circumstances outside your control delayed the sale. Conditions apply, including about residency, so check the ATO guidance against the facts.

Does MatterFirst handle deceased estate matters in South Australia? Matters can be recorded in all eight Australian jurisdictions, including SA. The trust accounting compliance review workflow covers NSW, VIC, QLD and WA, so a firm with an SA trust account should ask about that specifically.

Does MatterFirst connect to Xero? Yes. Xero, Stripe, Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace connect self-serve today.

The short version

• The tenancy on the title, not the will, determines which registry route applies and how long it takes.
• Joint tenants lodge a survivorship or notice of death application. Sole owners and tenants in common need a grant and a transmission application.
• Every jurisdiction uses different form names and numbers, so check the registry's current page rather than reusing a precedent from another state.
• Two dates belong in the file in week one: the grant follow-up, and the CGT two year date measured from the date of death.
• In NSW, concessional duty of $100 under section 63 of the Duties Act 1997 depends on the beneficiary taking in accordance with the will's terms.
• Do not give the client a settlement date that depends on a grant you have not applied for yet.