Property Law Bill consultation

We sought your views on a public exposure draft of the Property Law Bill 2022 (the Bill).

The current Property Law Act 1974 governs many aspects of Queensland’s property law, including:

• general rules affecting property
• the creation and disposition of interests in land
• co-ownership
• deeds
• covenants
• mortgages
• leases
• the rule against perpetuities
• old system land.

The Bill has been developed in line with the recommendations of the Commercial and Property Law Research Centre of the Queensland University of Technology (QUT) as set out in their Final report: Property Law Act 1974. The final report followed a broad-ranging, independent review of Queensland’s property laws.

In line with the recommendations in the QUT final report, the Bill will repeal the current Property Law Act 1974 and replace it with a new Act. The Bill will modernise Queensland’s property law by redrafting provisions in contemporary language that reflects current commercial practice, and repeals outdated provisions.

Submissions on the draft Bill are invited from the public and stakeholders to inform policy options in settling the Bill.

To assist in considering the Bill, the accompanying consultation paper notes areas where the Bill differs from QUT’s recommendations and where policy positions have been presented in consultation with stakeholders to date which differ from the QUT recommendation reflected in the Bill. Submitters with views on these issues may wish to comment.

Seller disclosure scheme—flood history information

We consulted on the Exposure draft of the Bill for implementing a statutory seller disclosure scheme in Queensland and the associated forms, with consultation closing on 31 August 2022.

Subject to consideration of the results of consultation, it is expected that the provisions for the implementation of the seller disclosure scheme will be incorporated as part of the Property Law Bill 2022.

Consistent with QUT’s recommendations, the draft disclosure statement does not require flooding history information to be disclosed but rather warns the buyer to make their own enquiries.

Further consideration is being given to whether flooding history information should also be included in the seller disclosure statement.

Accordingly, the consultation paper also seeks the views of the public and interested stakeholders to inform this consideration.

Have your say

You were invited to provide a written submission in response to the draft Property Law Bill and further consultation on whether flood history information should be included in the seller disclosure scheme.

This consultation closed at 5pm on 21 October 2022.

Your privacy

The Queensland Government is bound by the Information Privacy Act 2009. Find out more by reading our privacy statement. We may contact you for further information on the issues your raise in your submission. Information in your submission will be used to inform this consultation process. Your submission may also be published on our website. If you would like your submission—or any part of it—to be treated as confidential, please indicate this clearly. Please note however that all submissions may be subject to disclosure under the Right to Information Act 2009.

Contact

Please email the Property Law Act Review team on PropertyLawActReview@justice.qld.gov.au if you would like to find out more about this consultation.