After settlement: registration, keys, notices and what arrives later

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Kooky

Builder of Shaka, the payment router that pays every agent their commission on closing date.

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The message is short when it comes. Settlement has been effected, the keys are at the agency, congratulations. For the buyer and the seller it is the end of weeks of waiting, and it is natural to treat it as the end of the transaction.

It is the end of the exchange. Several things have not yet happened. The buyer is not yet the registered owner. The seller's mortgage is still showing on the title. The council does not yet know the property has changed hands. The deposit is still in a trust account. Over the following days and weeks each of these resolves, mostly without either party doing anything, and a few items arrive by post or email that are worth recognising when they do. This guide sets out what happens after settlement in Queensland, in roughly the order it happens: the handover, registration, the documents an owner does and does not receive, the automatic notifications, the bills that follow, the seller's loose ends, and the records worth keeping. It is general information; a solicitor or conveyancer can say what applies to a particular sale.

Brisbane City Council guidance citing Titles Queensland; Queensland Government guidance for sellers; national participation rules guidance on client authorisations.

The first hour: confirmation, keys and possession

The Queensland Government's guidance for buyers lists what settlement day delivers: the rest of the purchase price goes to the seller, the buyer obtains the title, receives the keys and takes possession. Its guidance for sellers lists the mirror image.

In practice the order is fixed by who learns what first. The solicitors and conveyancers see the electronic workspace complete. Each tells their own client. The seller's side tells the agent, and only then does the agent release the keys, because until that call the agent holds them for the seller. A buyer who arrives at the agency before settlement has gone through will be asked to wait, however close the removal truck is.

Possession passes with the keys unless the contract says otherwise. The same guidance says the seller must leave the home vacant and clean. From that moment the property is the buyer's to occupy, insure and look after, and the council rates are the buyer's from the following day: the guidance for both sides says the seller pays rates up to and including settlement day and the buyer starts paying the next day.

Lodged is not registered

At settlement the documents are lodged with Titles Queensland. They are not yet registered, and the difference is more than a formality.

Queensland runs a system of title by registration. The Queensland Law Handbook, published by Caxton Legal Centre, puts it in a sentence: upon registration, the buyer becomes the legal owner, subject to any registered mortgage. Until then the register still shows the seller, and the seller's lender.

The registry examines what has been lodged and then records it. Brisbane City Council's guidance on changes of ownership gives the usual time as three to five working days where all requirements are met. In an electronic settlement the instruments are checked for form before they are lodged, so most pass through without comment.

The gap is short, and it is covered. A buyer's solicitor normally lodges a priority notice before settlement. The registry's Land Title Practice Manual describes it as reserving priority for instruments that are to be lodged, and while it is current the registrar will not register most competing dealings ahead of them. It lapses by itself when the transfer and mortgage it names are registered.

No title deed will arrive

Buyers often expect a document: a deed, a certificate, something to put in a drawer. In Queensland there is none.

Titles Queensland addressed the question directly in a customer alert on 30 August 2023, after repeated enquiries. It no longer issues paper certificates of title, it holds no hard copy documents to forward to owners, and proof of ownership is obtained by searching the register. The alert notes that the register has been computerised since 1994 and that it is the register, not any certificate, that establishes ownership.

The legal change dates from 1 October 2019. The law firm HopgoodGanim, writing when the amending legislation took effect, explained that from that date the registrar could no longer issue paper certificates and existing ones ceased to be evidence of title, and that a certificate no longer needed to be produced at settlement.

What a new owner can expect is confirmation, not a deed. Titles Queensland issues a registration confirmation statement when a dealing is registered. The Queensland Revenue Office, which asks for one in support of some grant applications, defines it as the document that proves a person was recorded as the registered owner of the property at the time they acquired it, and says a current title search will serve if the statement is not available. In a represented purchase the buyer's solicitor or conveyancer is the usual source of a copy, sent with the final letter on the file.

Who is told without being asked

One form does most of the notifying. When a transfer is lodged it is accompanied by the registry's Form 24, the property information form, completed by the buyer's side.

The form collects more than most buyers realise. It records the buyer's name, date of birth, address and how to reach them; whether the buyer is a foreign person; the dates of possession and settlement; the price and how it was made up; the current use of the land; and details such as whether a safety switch and compliant smoke alarms are installed. The form states that the information is given to Queensland Government departments, local authorities and water distribution entities, and that some of it enters publicly searchable records.

The Queensland Law Handbook confirms the purpose: notification of the change of ownership is given to the relevant government departments through the information in Form 24.

Councils work from it. Brisbane City Council says it is notified by Titles Queensland after a transfer is lodged and updates its records when it receives that official notification. Its guidance tells buyers that no direct approach to the council is needed, and tells sellers the same.

This is why the postal address on the form matters. Rates notices, valuation notices and land tax correspondence all follow the address the registry passes on. A buyer who gives the address of the home they are leaving, and then moves, may not see the first notices.

The bills that follow

The first rates notice in the buyer's name comes from the council once its records are updated. Brisbane City Council says a new owner's first notice includes a one-off account and services establishment fee, for which some owners can apply to be exempt. Other councils set their own charges.

That notice should hold no surprises about the period before settlement. Rates are adjusted between the parties at settlement, so that the seller has borne the cost up to and including settlement day and the buyer from the day after. If the seller had paid the current period in advance, the buyer reimbursed the seller's share in the settlement figures, and the next notice starts the buyer's own account.

Water is handled the same way in principle. Water distribution entities are among the bodies that receive the Form 24 information, and usage up to settlement is allowed for in the settlement figures.

Land tax runs on a different clock. The Queensland Revenue Office's notice on its 2026–27 assessments says that people who owned land on 30 June 2026 may receive a letter, with notices issuing from August 2026 to those becoming liable for the first time or whose circumstances have changed. The letter sets out the person's landholdings and either confirms that an exemption, such as the one for a home, has been applied or explains how to claim one. A buyer who settled shortly before 30 June, or a seller who settled shortly after it, may therefore hear from the office about a property in the months that follow. What is owed, if anything, is a tax question outside this guide.

Everything that is not attached to the land is the buyer's to arrange. The Queensland Law Handbook lists the transfer of utilities among the buyer's own tasks before settlement. Electricity, gas, internet and home insurance do not follow the title.

The seller's loose ends

A seller's settlement day ends with money in the bank, and three matters still open.

The deposit is the first. It has been in the deposit holder's trust account since the contract was signed and did not move at settlement. The Office of Fair Trading's guidance for agents says a deposit may be withdrawn from trust only when the transaction is finalised, that the seller must be paid first or at the same time as other payments, and that the agent's commission and charges come last and require the client's written authority. The Queensland Government's guidance for sellers adds the deadline for paperwork: a written statement within 42 days, or within 14 days if the seller asks, setting out all amounts received, how they were paid and any payment, discount or benefit the agent received from a third party.

The mortgage is the second. The seller's lender was paid at settlement and its release was lodged with the transfer. The loan account closes, and with it any redraw or credit facility attached to it. On the register, the mortgage disappears when the release is registered along with the other dealings.

The third is housekeeping. Brisbane City Council's guidance says sellers do not need to tell the council about the sale, but can update their own mailing address separately. Insurance on the sold property, and any direct debits tied to the closed loan or its offset account, are the seller's to cancel or move.

The buyer's lender and the new mortgage

A buyer with a loan has a second relationship that begins at settlement. The lender's mortgage was lodged immediately after the transfer and is registered with it. From then on the title search shows the buyer as owner and the lender as mortgagee.

Because there is no paper certificate, the lender holds nothing physical. Its security is the entry on the register. The loan itself starts on settlement day, since that is when the money was advanced, and interest runs from that day.

A buyer with no loan has only the transfer to wait for.

Records worth keeping

The professionals keep their own files. Guidance from the Australian Registrars' National Electronic Conveyancing Council says a subscriber must retain a client authorisation, and the evidence supporting it, for seven years from lodgement. The Office of Fair Trading requires agents to keep trust account records for five years.

Those are the practitioners' obligations and their files, not the client's archive. A buyer or seller is sensible to keep their own set, because the questions that send people looking for these papers tend to arise many years later, when the property is sold again, refinanced or passed on. The useful documents are the signed contract, the settlement statement showing the adjustments and the final figures, the registration confirmation or a title search taken after registration, the receipt for transfer duty, and for a seller the agent's statement of account. Together they record what was paid, to whom and when.

Changing something on the title later

An owner's dealings with the registry do not end with the purchase. A change of name after marriage, the death of a co-owner or a correction to the register each requires a request to Titles Queensland, and each is best done before the property is next sold, since the name on the title has to match the name on a future contract.

How those requests are lodged changed this month. A Titles Queensland customer alert dated 7 September 2026 says public access to its Brisbane office ended that day and the office drop box closed at the end of business on 4 September. All lodgements must now be made online or by post. For people acting for themselves the registry points to its electronic drop box, launched on 20 July 2026 for common single-party dealings. An alert of 4 September adds that anyone lodging by post must now pay through the registry's online payment gateway and enclose the receipt.

An owner who took possession this spring and later needs to update the title will not find a counter to visit.

When something seems wrong

Most post-settlement queries are about timing, and waiting resolves them. A rates notice still in the seller's name a fortnight after settlement usually means the council has not yet processed the registry's notification. A title search that still shows the old owner two days after settlement means registration is not complete.

Some are about money. If the proceeds have not appeared in a seller's account, the seller's solicitor can see from the workspace when and where they were paid. If a deposit has not been paid out after settlement, the first question is to the deposit holder, and a seller is entitled to the written account described above.

Others are about the property: something missing, something damaged, something not as described. Those are questions under the contract, not about settlement, and the party's solicitor is the one to raise them with. Settlement completes the exchange. It does not by its own force extinguish every right the contract gave.

Settlement is the day the money moves. Ownership follows on the register a few days later, and the paperwork takes a few weeks to catch up.

Kooky, from Shaka

Kooky edits Queensland Estate and builds Shaka, the payment router he made for Queensland property professionals. One payment comes in, and every agent, agency and party in the deal receives their signed share on closing date.

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