The cooling-off period in Queensland: five business days, explained

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Kooky

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

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Signing a contract to buy a home is the largest commitment most people ever put their name to, and it is often made quickly, at a kitchen bench or on a phone screen, a few hours after an offer is accepted. Queensland law gives the buyer a short period afterwards to reconsider. For five business days, a buyer under a standard residential contract can withdraw for any reason, or for none.

The rule is simple to state and easy to get wrong in the details. Buyers miscount the days, assume the period applies at auction, or give it away without realising what they have signed. This guide explains how the cooling-off period works, using the Office of Fair Trading's published guidance: which contracts carry it, when the clock starts and stops, what it costs to use, and how it differs from the other ways a buyer may be able to leave a contract.

Office of Fair Trading, Queensland Government guidance on the cooling-off period for residential property.

What the cooling-off period is

The cooling-off period is a right given by statute to the buyer of residential property in Queensland. The Office of Fair Trading puts it in one line: the standard contract for buying a home comes with a cooling-off period of five business days.

Three features define it. It belongs to the buyer alone; the seller has no matching right to withdraw. It needs no reason; the buyer does not have to show a defect in the property, a problem with finance or anything else. And it has a price: a seller may keep a small part of the deposit when a buyer uses it.

The right is not hidden in the fine print. According to the Office of Fair Trading, a contract for the sale of a home must display a warning directly above the place where the buyer signs. The warning tells the buyer that the contract may be subject to a statutory cooling-off period of five business days, and that a termination penalty of 0.25 per cent of the purchase price applies if the buyer terminates during it. Anyone signing a Queensland residential contract should be able to find that statement immediately above the signature block.

Note the word "may" in the warning. Not every contract has a cooling-off period, which is the next thing to understand.

Which sales have one, and which do not

The period applies to ordinary private treaty sales of residential property: a house, unit or townhouse bought by negotiation, with a contract signed by both sides.

It does not apply at auction. The Office of Fair Trading states it without qualification: auctions have no cooling-off period. When the hammer falls, the highest bidder is bound, and the contract is signed on the spot with no right to withdraw the following week.

The exclusion reaches a little beyond auction day itself. The guidance says there is also no cooling-off period for a private treaty contract entered into within two business days of an unsuccessful auction of the property, where the buyer was a registered bidder at that auction. This closes an obvious gap. A home that is passed in is commonly sold shortly afterwards by negotiation with one of the people who bid. The law treats that buyer as having had the same opportunity to prepare as any other bidder, and the sale is as final as if the hammer had fallen.

Two practical points follow for buyers. Someone who registers to bid at an auction, watches the property pass in, and then negotiates over the following day or two should assume the contract they sign is final. And someone who did not register, and who buys the same passed-in property by private treaty, is in a different position: the two-day exclusion is tied to having been a registered bidder.

The governing statute contains other exceptions for less common situations. They are outside the scope of this guide, and a buyer in an unusual transaction should confirm with a solicitor or conveyancer whether the period applies.

When the five days start

The period does not begin when the buyer signs. It does not begin when the seller signs either. The Office of Fair Trading's wording is that the cooling-off period starts the day the buyer gets a copy of the signed contract, signed by both parties.

That distinction matters more than it used to. Contracts are now often signed electronically, by the buyer in one place and the seller in another, sometimes hours or days apart. The clock starts when the fully signed copy reaches the buyer, or the person acting for them. An agent's message saying "the seller has signed" is good news, but on the Office of Fair Trading's wording it is the copy of the contract that counts.

There is one adjustment. If the buyer receives the signed contract on a weekend or a public holiday, the guidance says the period starts on the next business day.

A business day, in ordinary usage, is a weekday that is not a public holiday. Saturdays and Sundays are never counted. Queensland's public holidays are not counted either, and some of them are local: show holidays fall on different dates in different parts of the state. A buyer whose five days run across a holiday should check with their conveyancer which days count for the property in question.

Counting to 5pm on the fifth day

The Office of Fair Trading states the end point exactly: the cooling-off period ends at 5pm on the final, fifth day.

The day the signed contract is received counts as the first day, provided it is a business day. From there the buyer counts forward, skipping weekends and public holidays, to the fifth business day. The examples below use dates from late June 2026, a fortnight with no public holidays in Queensland.

The first example shows the shortest case in calendar terms. A contract received on a Monday morning gives a cooling-off period that is over by the end of the same working week. Because the day of receipt counts, a contract that arrives at 4pm on Monday has, in effect, used most of its first day already.

The second example crosses a weekend, which stretches five business days over seven calendar days. The third shows the weekend adjustment: a contract received on Saturday starts its count on Monday, as if it had arrived then.

The 5pm cut-off is firm. A notice sent at 5.20pm on the fifth day is late. Buyers who think they may withdraw should not plan around the final hour.

How to end the contract

The steps for withdrawing are set out by the Office of Fair Trading and they are few. The buyer must give written notice to the seller or to the seller's agent. The notice must be signed. And it must be delivered before 5pm on the final day.

The guidance accepts delivery in person, by email or by fax. It also places the responsibility squarely on the buyer: it is up to the buyer to make sure the notice arrives in time. A notice drafted but not sent, or sent to the wrong address, does not end the contract.

There is no prescribed form. The notice needs to identify the contract, usually by the property address and the names of the parties, state that the buyer is terminating under the statutory cooling-off period, and carry the buyer's signature. In practice the buyer's solicitor or conveyancer normally prepares and sends the notice, which gives a clear record of when it went and to whom.

Once a valid notice is given, the contract is at an end. The Office of Fair Trading says the seller must refund the deposit within 14 days, less any penalty.

What it costs to walk away

The right is not free. On termination during the cooling-off period, the guidance says, the seller may deduct a penalty of up to 0.25 per cent of the purchase price from the deposit before refunding it.

A quarter of one per cent is $2.50 for every $1,000 of price. The chart shows what that means at four purchase prices.

Two words in the rule are worth noticing. The penalty is "up to" 0.25 per cent, and the seller "may" deduct it. It is a ceiling, and a seller can choose to take less or nothing. A seller who takes the full amount is within their entitlement, having taken the home off the market while the buyer decided.

The penalty is the whole of what the seller can keep under this rule. It is not the buyer's only cost. Money already spent on a building and pest inspection, a solicitor's review of the contract or a loan application is not recovered from anyone. For most buyers those sums, added to the penalty, are still small beside the cost of going ahead with a purchase they have come to doubt.

Waiving or shortening the period

The cooling-off period can be given up. The Office of Fair Trading says a buyer can choose to waive or shorten it by giving written notice to the seller or the seller's agent.

Sellers sometimes ask for this, and there are understandable reasons. A seller with two similar offers may prefer the one that is certain. A seller who needs to commit to their own next purchase wants to know the sale will stand. In a competitive sale, an offer that comes with the cooling-off period waived can be more attractive than a slightly higher one that does not.

From the buyer's side, the questions are what is being given up and whether anything else replaces it. A buyer who waives the cooling-off period but whose contract is still subject to finance and to a building and pest inspection retains two specific ways out. A buyer who waives it under a contract with no conditions has agreed to something close to an auction purchase, and should have done an auction bidder's preparation: inspections completed, finance confirmed, contract reviewed, all before signing.

The choice is the buyer's to make. Because it must be in writing, a buyer cannot waive the period by accident in conversation. The risk is the opposite one: signing a waiver or shortening notice that was presented with the other documents, without registering what it was. Each page put in front of a buyer at signing deserves to be read for exactly this reason.

Shortening works the same way. A buyer and seller might agree on two business days in place of five. The period then ends at the earlier time, and everything else about it is unchanged.

Three different ways out of a contract

Buyers often blur the cooling-off period with two other rights. They are separate, they have different triggers, and they can exist side by side in one contract.

Conditions are terms the parties agree to put in the contract. The Office of Fair Trading gives the usual examples: finance approval, a successful building and pest inspection, and the sale of the buyer's existing property. Each gives the buyer a way to end the contract if the stated event does not happen by the stated date. They require a reason, and the reason has to be the one in the condition. The Office of Fair Trading also reminds buyers that checking the conditions are actually written into the contract before signing is the buyer's responsibility.

The disclosure right is newer. Since 1 August 2025, a Queensland seller must give the buyer a disclosure statement and prescribed certificates before the contract is signed. According to the Office of Fair Trading, a buyer may terminate at any time before settlement if those documents were not provided before signing, or if the information in them is inaccurate or incomplete. For an inaccuracy, the buyer has to show that the matter was material, that they were unaware of it, and that they would not have signed had they known.

The cooling-off period is the only one of the three that asks nothing of the buyer except to act in time. It is also by far the shortest. In a typical conditional contract, the cooling-off period has expired well before the finance and inspection dates arrive. After that, a buyer who simply has second thoughts has no general right to withdraw, and can rely only on a condition that has not been satisfied.

Using the five days well

The cooling-off period is best treated as working time. Five business days is short, and the tasks that can change a buyer's mind all need to be booked.

A plan like this is general, and not every purchase will fit it. Where the contract also has finance and inspection conditions with later dates, there is less pressure to finish everything inside the week, because those conditions give further time for those particular matters. The cooling-off period then serves as a backstop for anything the conditions do not cover: a concern about the street, the title, the body corporate, or the decision itself.

Where the contract has no conditions, the five days are all the buyer has. Buyers in that position commonly book inspections on the day they sign, without waiting for the countersigned copy.

Common misunderstandings

A handful of mistaken beliefs come up repeatedly.

"The five days started when I signed." They start when the buyer receives the copy signed by both parties. That may be later, which helps the buyer, but it also means a buyer cannot be sure of the end date until they know when the signed copy was received.

"Five days means a week from now." It means five business days counted from and including the first. A contract received on a Monday expires on the Friday of the same week.

"I can cool off after an auction." There is no cooling-off period at auction, nor for a registered bidder who buys within two business days of a failed auction.

"I told the agent I was out." A verbal statement does not terminate the contract. The notice must be written, signed and delivered before 5pm on the last day.

"I will lose my deposit." The seller must refund the deposit within 14 days and may keep no more than 0.25 per cent of the purchase price.

"The seller can cool off too." The right is the buyer's. A seller who receives a better offer the next day is bound by the contract they signed.

"Once it has passed, I can still pull out if I change my mind." After 5pm on the fifth day, the general right is gone. What remains are any conditions written into the contract and the separate right connected to seller disclosure, each with its own test.

The Office of Fair Trading publishes its guidance on buying a home on the Queensland Government website, and it is the first reference for the general rule. For any particular contract, the buyer's own solicitor or conveyancer is the person to say when the period started, when it ends, and what else the contract allows.

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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