Who should prepare the Contract of Sale of Real Estate?
The contract should always be prepared by a qualified lawyer for one party, and carefully checked by a lawyer acting for the other. This is to ensure that both parties’ interests are protected. These days, however, “standard form” Contract documents are often used by non-qualified people, such as conveyancers (who purchase standard forms from lawyers) and estate agents (who purchase pads of Contract Note from their Real Estate Institute of Victoria. While conveyancers and estate agents are not prevented from operating in this way, the desire to “get things done quickly” often creates problems for the parties involved, as neither conveyancers nor estate agents are qualified to provide the legal advice that should always accompany a contract document.
