The Form 1 Explained: What Must Be Disclosed Before You Buy in South Australia

Almost every South Australian who has bought a house has been handed a Form 1. Far fewer have read it. It arrives in a bundle of paperwork, usually from the agent, often at the least convenient moment, and it is easy to file it away as another piece of administrative furniture.

That is a mistake, and an expensive one. The Form 1 is the document through which the vendor tells you what is actually wrong with, attached to, or restricted about the land you are buying. It is also the document that starts your cooling-off clock running. Get it right and you have a short, protected window in which to change your mind. Get it wrong and you can find yourself bound to a contract over a property you would not have bought had you known.

What the Form 1 Actually Is

The Form 1, properly called the vendor's statement, is required by section 7 of the Land and Business (Sale and Conveyancing) Act 1994 (SA). Its form and required particulars are prescribed by the Land and Business (Sale and Conveyancing) Regulations 2025 (SA), which replaced the 2010 regulations and came into operation on 1 September 2025.

Its purpose is disclosure, and only disclosure. It is not a warranty that the property is a good buy, it is not a building inspection, and it is not a substitute for your own enquiries. What it does is put you on notice of a defined list of matters affecting the land, certified as accurate by or on behalf of the vendor.

Structurally it runs to several parts: the details of the parties, a statement of your cooling-off rights, the vendor or agent's certification that the required particulars have been disclosed, a certification of accuracy, and then the schedule itself, which is where the substance sits.

What Has To Be Disclosed

The schedule captures the encumbrances and restrictions that do not announce themselves on an inspection. In practice, the entries that matter most often include mortgages and other registered encumbrances; easements and rights of way over the land; restrictive covenants and land management agreements; notices and orders issued by the council or another statutory authority; and the planning position of the land.

That last item is worth pausing on. Since the Planning, Development and Infrastructure Act 2016 replaced the old development plans with the Planning and Development Code, the Form 1 discloses the zone, subzone and any overlays applying to the land. Overlays are where a great deal of practical risk lives: a bushfire, flooding, heritage, character or hazard overlay can materially change what you are permitted to build, how you must build it, and what it will cost. Two houses on the same street can sit under quite different overlays.

Since 19 March 2021, the Form 1 must also disclose whether the vendor has been advised of the presence of aluminium composite panel cladding on the exterior of a building on the land. This matters most for apartments and mixed-use buildings, where rectification costs fall on the owners corporation and, through it, on you.

The Cooling-Off Clock, and Where People Lose It

South Australia gives residential purchasers a cooling-off period of two clear business days. Two things about that deserve emphasis, because both are routinely misunderstood.

The first is what "clear" means. The day of service does not count, and neither do weekends or public holidays. A Form 1 served late on a Thursday afternoon before a long weekend gives you considerably more real time than the same document served on a Monday morning.

The second is when the clock starts. It runs from the later of the making of the contract and the service of the Form 1. If the Form 1 comes to you before you sign, the period runs from signing. If it comes afterwards, which is the more common sequence, the period runs from service. This is why the date and manner of service is not a clerical detail; it is the difference between having a right and having lost it.

If you do cool off, you give written notice to the vendor or the agent that you do not intend to be bound. The burden of proving you gave that notice in time falls on you, so the method matters. Any deposit you have paid above $100 must be refunded.

Timing: Private Treaty Versus Auction

In a private treaty sale, the vendor must serve the Form 1 on the purchaser at least 10 clear days before settlement. In practice a well-run conveyance gets it out much earlier than that, because the document frequently raises questions that take time to answer.

Auctions work on an entirely different footing, and this is the single most important thing for an auction bidder to understand: there is no cooling-off period when you buy at auction. The hammer falls and you are bound. To compensate, the Act requires the Form 1 to be available for inspection at the agent's or auctioneer's office for three business days before the auction, and to be on display at the auction venue for at least 30 minutes before bidding starts.

Thirty minutes in a crowded room is not a serious opportunity to review a disclosure document. If you intend to bid, obtain the Form 1 during that three-day window and have it reviewed properly, along with the contract, before auction day. There is no second chance afterwards. The same logic applies to your finance and your building inspection: our article on cooling-off periods in South Australian property transactions goes through how those pieces fit together.

When the Form 1 Is Wrong

The Act does not merely require a Form 1; it requires an accurate one. Section 10 requires the statement to be accurate as at the time it is served on the purchaser. A Form 1 that is inaccurate or incomplete is defective, and a defective Form 1 has consequences.

The most immediate is the cooling-off period. If the document that was served was not a compliant Form 1, the period may not have properly started, which can leave a purchaser with a right to withdraw far later than either party assumed. Beyond that, failing to provide a Form 1 or providing one that is inaccurate is an offence carrying a maximum penalty of $10,000, and a purchaser who has been prejudiced may have court remedies including rescission or damages.

A recurring source of error is staleness. The Form 1 speaks as at the date of service, not the date it was drafted. Where a sale is delayed, where a new council order issues, or where something changes on the title between preparation and service, the document has to be brought up to date. Vendors sometimes assume that because the agent prepared the Form 1, responsibility for its accuracy has moved as well. It has not. The obligation sits with the vendor.

Waiving Cooling-Off

Cooling-off rights can be waived, but not casually. A purchaser may only waive them after obtaining a certificate from an independent solicitor confirming that the purchaser has been advised of the consequences of doing so.

There are legitimate reasons to take that step. A vendor with a tight settlement chain may accept one offer over another precisely because it comes without a cooling-off window, and in a competitive market that can be decisive. But it is a genuine surrender of a statutory protection, and it should follow a considered review of the Form 1 and the contract rather than precede it.

For Sellers: This Is Your Document

Vendors tend to treat the Form 1 as something that happens to them. It is worth reframing. The Form 1 is your certification, it carries your liability, and the quality of the searches behind it determines whether your sale settles cleanly or unravels.

The practical points are straightforward. Order the searches early rather than at the last moment, so there is time to resolve anything unexpected. Disclose fully, including matters you suspect a buyer might not like, because non-disclosure is a far worse outcome than an awkward conversation. Tell whoever is preparing the document about anything you know that a title search will not reveal, such as correspondence from the council or a dispute with a neighbour over a boundary. And have the finished document reviewed before it is served, not after.

How Zed Legal Can Help

Conveyancing is core work for us, and the Form 1 is where a good conveyance either earns its fee or does not. For purchasers, we review the Form 1 and the contract together, explain what the encumbrances, notices and overlays actually mean for what you intend to do with the property, and make sure the cooling-off position is calculated correctly rather than assumed. For vendors, we prepare and certify the statement, run the searches behind it, and keep it accurate through to service. Where a matter raises a question that goes beyond the conveyance, our property law team can take it further. If you are not sure whether your transaction needs a lawyer or a conveyancer, we set out the difference in this article.

If you have a Form 1 in front of you and a decision to make, contact us at hello@zed.legal before the clock runs down.

This article is general information only and current as at September 2026. It is not legal advice and does not take your circumstances into account. Disclosure obligations, prescribed forms and cooling-off rights are governed by the Land and Business (Sale and Conveyancing) Act 1994 (SA) and the regulations made under it, which may change. Please obtain advice specific to your transaction before signing or serving anything.