What are my rights with a cooling-off period?
The Conveyancing Act allows purchasers a five day business period commencing the next business day after exchange during which time the purchaser can decide to pull out of the contract and not continue with the purchase. The cooling-off period is a good opportunity for you to obtain your unconditional finance approval from your bank, arrange pest/building/strata inspection reports and make any other enquiries you wish about the property before committing to the contract. If you decide to pull out of the contract, a Notice of Rescission needs to be sent to the vendor’s solicitor before the expiry of the cooling-off period (ie. 5pm on the final day of the cooling-off period). You are then penalised 0.25% of the purchase price (e.g. $1,000 on a $400,000 purchase, or $2,000 on a $800,000 purchase). If you decide to continue with the contract, you just need to make sure that the balance of the deposit is paid to the deposit holder (usually the real estate agent) before the expiry of the coo
