{"id":4464,"date":"2019-12-03T08:23:47","date_gmt":"2019-12-03T08:23:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/?p=4464"},"modified":"2019-12-03T08:23:47","modified_gmt":"2019-12-03T08:23:47","slug":"stronger-protections-for-off-the-plan-buyers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/2019\/12\/03\/stronger-protections-for-off-the-plan-buyers\/","title":{"rendered":"STRONGER PROTECTIONS FOR OFF-THE-PLAN BUYERS"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Prospective homebuyers will be better protected under sweeping changes to the law governing off-the-plan contracts.\u00a0Changes to the Conveyancing Act, which take effect on 1 December 2019, will see much tighter requirements imposed on developers regarding disclosures, cooling-off periods, holding of deposits and sunset clauses.<br \/>\nMinister for Customer Service Victor Dominello said the number of off-the-plan purchases in NSW had increased significantly in the last decade from 2,646 in the 2008\/09 financial year, to 17,218 in 2018\/19, which represents 10.6 per cent of residential property sales.<br \/>\n\u201cWe are delivering on our commitment to better protect home buyers by closing down loopholes and increasing disclosure standards across the board,\u201d Mr Dominello said.<br \/>\nThe changes include:<br \/>\n\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Buyers being provided with key information about the development, including\u00a0 copies of the proposed plan, proposed by-laws and a schedule of finishes before contracts are signed;<br \/>\n\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Requiring vendors to notify purchasers of material changes to what was disclosed;<br \/>\n\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Allowing buyers to end the contract or claim compensation in some cases if they are materially impacted by changes made from what was disclosed;<br \/>\n\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Vendors providing a copy of the final plan at least 21 days before the buyer can be compelled to settle;<br \/>\n\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Widening existing legislation to clarify that the Supreme Court can award damages where the vendor terminates under a sunset clause; and<br \/>\n\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Extending the cooling-off period to 10 business days with any deposit to be held in a controlled account until settlement.<br \/>\n\u201cBuying off-the-plan is a popular option, particularly for first home buyers, but there can be risks and uncertainties involved,\u201d Mr Dominello said.<br \/>\nMinister for Better Regulation and Innovation Kevin Anderson said: \u201cThese changes are vitally important for the NSW Government\u2019s building reforms which aim to deliver greater protections for consumers, while increasing the transparency, accountability and quality of work in the sector.\u201d<br \/>\nFor more information visit\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.registrargeneral.nsw.gov.au\/\">www.registrargeneral.nsw.gov.au<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Prospective homebuyers will be better protected under sweeping changes to the law governing off-the-plan contracts.\u00a0Changes to the Conveyancing Act, which take effect on 1 December 2019, will see much tighter requirements imposed on developers regarding disclosures, cooling-off periods, holding of deposits and sunset clauses. Minister for Customer Service Victor Dominello said the number of off-the-plan &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/2019\/12\/03\/stronger-protections-for-off-the-plan-buyers\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;STRONGER PROTECTIONS FOR OFF-THE-PLAN BUYERS&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4464","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nswnews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4464","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4464"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4464\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4464"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4464"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4464"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}