Vacant land and house-and-land contracts, reviewed

The problem with vacant-land contracts

A vacant block looks like the simplest contract on the desk and often is not. The value is all in what runs with the land — the easements and covenants registered against the lot, the build restrictions and design covenants a developer imposes, the services that are and are not connected, and the time limits to build. On a freshly subdivided lot, those burdens are newly created and easy to underestimate.

For house-and-land buyers there is a second trap: the land contract and the building contract are separate, and the things that matter to the land sit in the contract for sale of land, not the build.

How Torri reviews vacant-land contracts

• 1

  Read the burdens on title

  Torri extracts the easements, covenants and restrictions registered against the lot, including those created under an 88B instrument — the drainage, services and access easements common on a new block.

• 2

  Surface the build conditions

  The special conditions a vacant-land sale carries — build covenants, design controls and time limits — are read and summarised, so the obligations on your client after settlement are clear.

• 3

  Check the prescribed documents

  The prescribed documents the contract should attach are checked against the title, so a gap on a vacant-land contract is visible at a glance.

Built for NSW conveyancing

Vacant-land and house-and-land sales sit squarely in the NSW contract for sale of land and its prescribed-document rules. Torri reads the easements and covenants the NSW way — following the 88B reference off the plan — and applies the prescribed-document checklist for the title it detects.

Where it fits your review

Vacant land is deceptively quick to wave through, which is exactly why a careful first read matters. Torri lists the burdens and conditions; you advise on what they mean. On greenfield estates it works alongside the off-the-plan review, since many new lots are sold both ways.