One council area. Two entirely different contracts.
Blacktown City Council issues the planning certificate for a house-and-land package at Marsden Park and for a transfer of a house built in the 1960s. We act on property across the area from our office at Bella Vista.
Blacktown is one of the most populous local government areas in New South Wales, and the scale is the point. A contract for a new house at Marsden Park, Schofields or Riverstone, and a contract for a house built in the 1960s at Seven Hills, Doonside or Lalor Park, are both loosely “a Blacktown purchase”. Beyond the council whose planning certificate is attached, they have little in common.
We act on property in the Blacktown area from our one office, at Bella Vista. We have no premises in Blacktown and do not suggest otherwise. Conveyancing in New South Wales runs electronically — certificates are ordered and returned online, and exchange and settlement happen in an electronic lodgment network with the parties in different places. What decides a purchase is the contract, not how far the lawyer sits from the front door. On any one transaction we act for one side only.
The release areas
Where land has been released for housing, what is sold is often a lot that does not yet exist as a separate title, a house not yet built, or both. That changes the document set.
- Land and build are commonly two contracts with two counterparties. The land contract is conveyancing; the building contract is a construction contract and must be read as one.
- Completion may be tied to registration of the plan of subdivision rather than a fixed date, with a sunset date as the limit. The Conveyancing Act 1919 (NSW) restricts when a vendor may rescind an off the plan residential contract under a sunset clause .
- Residential building work above the prescribed contract price requires insurance under the Home Building Act 1989 (NSW), and the statutory warranties in Part 2C of that Act apply to the work. Warranty periods run from completion of the work — six years for a major defect, two years otherwise.
- Estate covenants, design restrictions and community or strata schemes run with the land and bind you. Read them before exchange, not once a builder is on site.
A certificate for a lot that does not exist yet. Where the lot has not been registered, the planning certificate will ordinarily relate to the parent parcel rather than to the lot being bought, and the description of the land can change between exchange and registration. It has to be read with the draft plan and the disclosure documents.
The established suburbs
In the older suburbs the risk sits in what has been done to the property over five decades. A carport, a garage conversion, a secondary dwelling or a rear addition may have been built with approval, or not. A certificate under section 10.7 of the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act 1979 (NSW) tells you what the land may be used for and what constrains it. It does not tell you whether the structures standing on it were approved. That is a question for council records and the building report, and it belongs before exchange.
Where there is a pool or spa, a certificate under the Swimming Pools Act 1992 (NSW) is among the documents prescribed for a residential contract. A certificate of non-compliance does not stop the sale — it tells the purchaser they are inheriting the rectification work. The sewer diagram and the title plan show what runs under and across the land, which often decides whether a planned extension is possible.
Selling
Residential property cannot be offered for sale until the contract exists with the documents section 52A of the Conveyancing Act 1919 (NSW) requires attached, and under section 63 of the Property and Stock Agents Act 2002 (NSW) the agent must have it available for inspection. Certificates take time, and an unapproved structure in an older suburb is better found by the vendor than by a purchaser’s building report. Drafting starts before the first open home.
Where to next
Blacktown questions.
You’re not in Blacktown. Does that matter?
No. Our office is at Bella Vista and we have no Blacktown premises. Conveyancing in New South Wales is done electronically: searches and certificates are ordered online, documents are signed electronically, and exchange and settlement run through an electronic lodgment network. Nothing in the process requires you or us to be near the property. If you would rather meet in person, you are welcome at Bella Vista.
We’re buying house and land in a new estate. Is that different from buying an existing house?
Usually yes. There are often two contracts — one for the land, one for the build — with different counterparties. Completion may be tied to registration of the plan of subdivision rather than a set date, with a sunset date as the limit. The build brings statutory warranties under the Home Building Act 1989 (NSW), and insurance requirements, that a transfer of an existing house does not.
The house has a carport and a rear addition. How do we know they were approved?
The section 10.7 planning certificate under the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act 1979 (NSW) tells you how the land may be used and what constrains it, not whether the structures on it were approved. That comes from council building records and from a building report. It matters on resale, on insurance, and if the council later requires the work to be regularised or removed.
What does the planning certificate actually cover?
Blacktown City Council issues it for the land, and it sets out the planning controls that apply — the zone, what development is permitted, and prescribed matters affecting the land. It is one of the documents that must be attached to a residential contract before the property is offered for sale. It describes the land, not the buildings, and not the state of repair of anything on it.
Tell us what's happened.
Send us the contract before you sign or bid — house-and-land package or fifty-year-old house — and we’ll tell you whether we can act, what reviewing it would involve and what that would cost.
Information on this site is general in nature and is not legal advice, and may have been overtaken by a change in the law. Contacting us does not create a solicitor–client relationship.