Strata certificates in an Australian conveyancing matter: what each state requires, and when to order one

Strata purchases turn on scheme information the contract does not contain, and each state names it differently: a section 184 certificate in NSW (14 days), an owners corporation certificate in Victoria (10 business days), a Form 33 certificate in Queensland (5 business days). MatterFirst, practice management software for Australian law firms, diarises each date on the matter.

What each jurisdiction requires

A contract for a strata lot does not tell you whether the seller's levies are paid, whether a special levy was struck last month, or what sits in the capital works fund. Each state has its own mechanism for prying that out of the scheme, and they differ in who must obtain the document and how long the scheme has to produce it. Get the first wrong and nobody orders it; get the second wrong and you book a settlement you cannot reach.

New South Wales: section 184, and 14 days

In New South Wales the document is a certificate under section 184 of the Strata Schemes Management Act 2015. The request must be made by written notice to the owners corporation, accompanied by the prescribed fee, under section 184(2), and the owners corporation then has 14 days to produce it, under section 184(7). The duty and the fee sit with the owners corporation itself, not the strata managing agent. Schedule 4 of the Strata Schemes Management Regulation 2016 prescribes the fee, reported as $109 for an initial request plus $54 for a further certificate covering a garage, parking space or storeroom (LookUpStrata). NSW Fair Trading publishes an approved section 184 certificate form.

In practice the buyer's practitioner orders it: nothing compels a New South Wales seller to hand one over with the contract, so if the file carries no diarised task, the information never arrives.

Victoria: the certificate belongs in the vendor's statement

Victoria puts the obligation on the other side. An owners corporation certificate under section 151 of the Owners Corporations Act 2006 is obtained by the vendor and included in the section 32 statement given before the contract is signed, subject to exceptions such as an inactive owners corporation. Any person may apply in writing with the fee, and Consumer Affairs Victoria states that the owners corporation "must issue an owners corporation certificate to any person within 10 business days" of receiving the request and payment (Consumer Affairs Victoria). It carries attachments: the rules, the prescribed statement of advice and information, and the resolutions of the last annual general meeting.

Victoria also caps the charge on a sliding scale by turnaround: 9.64 fee units for 6 to 10 business days, 14.46 fee units for 3 to 5 business days and 17.35 fee units for 2 business days. A fee unit is $17.27 for 2026-27 (Consumer Affairs Victoria), putting the standard certificate near $166 excluding GST and the two day certificate near $300, so ordering early saves the client money.

Queensland: Form 33 rides with the Form 2

Queensland changed most recently. The seller disclosure scheme in the Property Law Act 2023 commenced on 1 August 2025 and applies to contracts entered into on or after that date, under section 251(1). The seller gives the buyer a Form 2 seller disclosure statement before the contract, with the prescribed certificates listed in section 5 of the Property Law Regulation 2024 (Queensland Law Society Proctor).

For a lot in a community titles scheme that means a Form 33 body corporate certificate, or a Form 34 for specified two lot schemes, plus the community management statement, which the seller obtains from Queensland Titles rather than from the body corporate (HopgoodGanim).

The body corporate must issue the certificate within 5 business days of a written request and payment, under section 205 of the Body Corporate and Community Management Act 1997. A buyer wanting the benefit of section 205(7), under which the certificate is conclusive in the buyer's favour, should obtain its own before settlement rather than rely on the seller's. Failure to give the Form 2 or an applicable prescribed certificate gives the buyer a right to terminate at any time up to settlement, and inaccuracies or omissions about a material matter can also support termination, under section 104.

Western Australia: a disclosure list, then notifiable variations

Western Australia requires the seller to give a prospective buyer a specified list of scheme information before the contract is signed, under the Strata Titles Act 1985 as amended with effect from 1 May 2020: the scheme notice and plan, the by-laws including unregistered ones, unit entitlements, the strata company's details, recent minutes and accounts, the lot's contributions, any debt owed to the strata company and any current termination proposal notice.

What is distinctive is the continuing duty. If a relevant change occurs after the contract and before settlement, the seller must notify the buyer in writing of the notifiable variation, generally within 10 working days of becoming aware of it, or as soon as practicable if the seller learns of it less than 15 working days before settlement. Type 1 variations include a reduction of 5 per cent or more in the lot's area, a change of 5 per cent or more in unit entitlement, and anything relating to a termination proposal (LookUpStrata). A materially prejudiced buyer may be able to avoid the contract, so a Western Australian file needs an obligation that runs to settlement, not a pre-contract tick.

South Australia: records on request, and the Form 1 clock

South Australia splits the work between two Acts. A unit holder or prospective purchaser may apply to the strata corporation under section 41(1) of the Strata Titles Act 1988 and regulation 31 of the Strata Titles Regulations 2018 for the accounting records, the minute books, documents from the original registered proprietor, any strata manager contract and the register of unit holders. The fees are modest, $10 for each of the first three and nothing for the last two, and the corporation must produce them within 5 business days of the application (South Australian Law Handbook).

Separately, the vendor's Form 1 under section 7 of the Land and Business (Sale and Conveyancing) Act 1994 must be accurate when served, under section 10, and a defective Form 1 affects when the cooling off period starts to run (South Australian Law Handbook).

The ACT and the Northern Territory run their own unit titles regimes, with their own certificate names, fees and timeframes. Confirm those against territory legislation rather than assuming the New South Wales pattern carries across.

What to order, where the obligation sits, how long it takes

The figures that drive the settlement adjustment

The same figures end up in the settlement statement, and they are worth holding as fields rather than leaving in a PDF:

1. The current periodic contribution for the lot, administrative and capital works, and the period it covers.
2. The date contributions are paid to, which decides the apportionment.
3. Arrears, interest and any recovery action against the lot.
4. Any special levy struck, including instalments not yet due.

How MatterFirst handles this

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, which matters here because the certificate name, the statutory source and the turnaround all change with the state.

The obligations and limitation dates engine calculates key dates from rules and cites the governing statute on the obligation it creates, as it cites the Limitation Act 1969 (NSW) s 14(1) on a limitation date. A firm defines its own matter types for strata purchases and sales, so the certificate request, the statutory production window and the pre-settlement refresh become obligations with calendar-synced key dates rather than a note in a file. Automations run on trigger, condition and action rules, and generating a document can be a workflow step: a request letter to the strata manager can issue once matter type and jurisdiction are set.

Document AI extracts key terms from uploaded documents and flags risks, and custom extraction rules let a firm define the fields it wants from its own document set, so levies, paid-to dates, arrears and special levy resolutions can be pulled into the matter for a person to check. Generation is deterministic by default, so an adjustment statement built from merge fields and matter data projections uses no AI section and produces the same output every time, and the result files on the matter or goes to the client portal.

Trust accounting is built for Australian jurisdictions, with a compliance review workflow covering New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland and Western Australia. 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 are connectable today, alongside a REST API with webhooks.

How the main Australian platforms compare on published pricing

Pricing transparency is checkable, so check it. Verified against each vendor's own public pages on 21 October 2026.

Sources: matterfirst.com/pricing, smokeball.com.au/pricing, actionstep.com/au/pricing. "Not published" means the figure was not on a page retrievable in this check, not that the product lacks the capability. LEAP and Clio price by quote in Australia, so ask in writing what a further user costs in year two.

MatterFirst is from $199 per month per workspace, with users included. Every paid plan includes the client portal, automations and a monthly AI balance in Australian dollars drawn down by metered AI work: A$100 on Solo, A$280 on Practice, A$600 on Firm and A$1,200 on Enterprise. It is a dollar balance, not credits, and deterministic document generation draws down nothing. The metering detail is on the AI pricing page.

Who this suits, and who it does not

MatterFirst suits Australian firms of roughly two to twenty fee earners running volume property and strata work that want onshore hosting and trust accounting built to state rules. A per workspace price is predictable for a firm adding a paralegal or a licensed conveyancer, and poor value for a sole practitioner who wants the cheapest seat and nothing else.

It is not the answer for a firm whose conveyancing depends on PEXA and InfoTrack sitting inside the practice management system today, since both are listed as coming soon, nor for a firm that needs MYOB or QuickBooks Online as its ledger, since Xero is the accounting integration available now. The evaluation checklist sets out the questions worth putting to any vendor, including this one.

FAQ

Does MatterFirst handle Victorian owners corporation certificates? It handles the workflow around them. A firm can define a strata matter type, raise an obligation for the certificate request with the statutory production window, calculate the key dates, and use custom extraction rules to pull levies, paid-to dates and arrears into the matter for review. It does not order the certificate for you.

How long is a strata certificate good for? Treat it as current only as at its issue date. Levies, arrears and special levies change at every general meeting. In Queensland, a buyer wanting the protection of section 205(7) of the BCCM Act should obtain its own certificate before settlement rather than rely on the seller's.

Who pays for the certificate, the buyer or the seller? It depends on the state. In New South Wales the buyer's practitioner usually requests it and the fee goes to the owners corporation. In Victoria it forms part of the vendor's section 32 statement. In Queensland the seller obtains the Form 33 and gives it with the Form 2, and the buyer may still obtain its own.

Who do I chase when the certificate is late? The owners corporation or body corporate, not the managing agent, because that is where the statutory duty sits. In Queensland an explanatory statement under section 6 of the Property Law Regulation 2024 is not a workaround for a missed 5 business day deadline.

Which states does MatterFirst's trust compliance review cover? New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland and Western Australia. If your firm holds trust money in South Australia, Tasmania, the ACT or the Northern Territory, ask about that specifically. Matters themselves can be recorded in all eight jurisdictions.

The short version

Strata information is the part of a conveyancing file most likely to be ordered late, because in several states somebody else is supposed to order it. Work out per jurisdiction who holds the obligation and how long the scheme has: 14 days in New South Wales, 10 business days in Victoria, 5 business days in Queensland and South Australia, and a continuing notification duty in Western Australia. Put those dates on the matter with the statute beside them, and the certificate stops being what delays settlement.