Electronic deeds under the Property Law Act 2023: what still needs ink

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Kooky

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"Signed, sealed and delivered" is one of the oldest phrases in property law, and for a long time it was a literal description. A deed was a physical document, signed, marked with a seal and handed over. Queensland law no longer asks for most of that.

The Property Law Act 2023 commenced on 1 August 2025. Part 6 of the Act, headed "Deeds and covenants", sets out in fifteen short sections how a deed is made. A deed may be an electronic document. It may be signed electronically. An individual may sign it whether or not a witness is present. A company may execute it without a seal. The same Part says where those freedoms stop, and other statutes keep their own formalities for wills, enduring documents and papers bound for the land registry.

This guide works through Part 6 section by section, then turns to the documents that stayed on paper. It is built on the text of the Act as in force, the explanatory notes to the Bill, and the Queensland Law Society's published table on electronic signing. It does not cover the signing of a contract for the sale of a home, which is a different subject.

Sources: Property Law Act 2023 (Qld), section 49, reprint current as at 28 April 2026; MinterEllison, "Calling half time on the statutory limitation period for deeds", 2 October 2024.

Why a deed is different from a contract

Most agreements are contracts, and a contract rests on an exchange: each side gives or promises something. A deed is a more solemn instrument, traditionally used where a person binds themselves without receiving anything in return, or where the parties want no argument about whether something was given. That is why deeds turn up in guarantees, releases, settlements of disputes and powers of attorney.

Because a deed can bind in that way, the law has always wanted proof that the maker meant it. The old formalities were that proof. The reform keeps the idea and changes the tokens. In place of a seal, the Act asks for a clear statement in the document that it is a deed. In place of a required witness, it relies on the signature and on delivery, which is the maker's intention to be bound.

The Act still has one section that reads like the old world. Section 57 provides that a receipt for consideration in the body of a deed is a sufficient discharge, without a further receipt being endorsed on it.

How Queensland arrived at electronic deeds

The 2023 Act did not invent the electronic deed. The explanatory notes to the Property Law Bill 2023 say that the Bill retains, with minor modifications, the provisions relating to deeds, including electronic deeds, that were inserted in the Property Law Act 1974 by the Justice and Other Legislation Amendment Act 2021. The notes add that those provisions began as a temporary response to the COVID-19 public health emergency before being made permanent.

The Act received assent in November 2023, and its commencement was delayed. Law firm MinterEllison recorded in October 2024 that a proclamation had set 1 August 2025 as the commencement date for the Act and its regulations. The reprint of the Act read for this guide is current as at 28 April 2026.

The practical result of that history is continuity. Someone who learned the rules for electronic deeds under the old Act does not have to relearn them. What changed on 1 August 2025 is the address: the rules now sit in Part 6, Division 1 of a new statute, with new section numbers.

The four requirements in section 49

Section 49 is the centre of the Part. A document takes effect as a deed if it meets four requirements.

1. It is in writing.
2. It contains a clear statement that the document is a deed. This is the requirement that stops a person making a deed by accident, and it is the one that replaced the seal as the mark of solemnity. The Queensland Law Society puts it this way: a deed does not need to be sealed or stated to be sealed, though it must contain a clear statement that it is executed as a deed.
3. It is executed under the Division. Sections 51 to 54 say how, for each kind of signatory.
4. It is delivered in accordance with section 56.

Section 50 then supplies the electronic rule in a single sentence. A document that is to have effect as a deed may be in the form of an electronic document and may be electronically signed. The definitions in section 44 tie the two halves together: to sign a physical document means to physically sign it, and to sign an electronic document means to electronically sign it.

Who signs, and how

Execution depends on who the signatory is. The Act gives each a section.

An individual: section 51. An individual may execute a document that is to have effect as a deed by signing it. Subsection (2) removes the witness: the individual may sign whether or not in the presence of a witness. A witness is still allowed, and many deeds will go on being witnessed out of habit or caution. The point is that the absence of one no longer prevents the document from being a deed.

A corporation: section 52. A corporation has two routes. It may execute a deed without using a seal, where the document is signed by two directors, or by one director and one secretary. Or it may use a seal, with the fixing of the seal witnessed, and the section allows for that witnessing to take place by audio visual link. The section also provides for signature by a lawfully authorised agent or attorney of the corporation. As with individuals, a document may be signed under the section whether or not in the presence of a witness. Section 44 notes that a corporation's seal includes its common seal.

A partnership or unincorporated association: section 53. An individual may execute a deed on behalf of a partnership or an unincorporated association by signing the document, in a way that indicates the capacity in which they sign. Again no witness is needed. The Queensland Law Society's table makes the same point in plain terms: an individual can sign a deed on behalf of a partnership or unincorporated association without a witness.

The State: section 54. An authorised person may execute a deed for the State by signing, without a seal and without witnesses.

None of these sections decides who has authority inside an organisation. They say what form of signature the law accepts once the right people sign.

The accepted method of signing electronically

Section 50 allows electronic signing but does not name a technology. The limits on how an electronic signature may be made are described in the Queensland Law Society's table, which says that deeds can be made in the form of an electronic document and electronically signed when using an "accepted method".

According to that table, an accepted method must identify the signatory and the signatory's intention in relation to the contents of the document, be as reliable as appropriate for the purposes of the document, and be consented to by all the signatories to the document.

Three things follow from that description.

Identification and intention are the functions a handwritten signature has always performed. The test asks an electronic method to perform the same two.

Reliability is proportionate. The standard is what is appropriate for the purposes of the document, which leaves room for a routine deed and a high-value one to be treated differently.

Consent belongs to every signatory. An electronic method is an accepted one only if all the signatories to the document agree to it. A party who prefers paper cannot be made to sign on a screen.

A caution on sourcing belongs here. When it was read for this guide, the Society's table still cited the Property Law Act 1974, with a note that it would be updated to the new Act's provisions. Given the explanatory notes' statement that the deed provisions were retained with minor modifications, the description is used here as a guide to the framework. A reader who needs the exact wording of the test should go to the definitions in the 2023 Act itself.

Counterparts, split execution and delivery

Two techniques let the parties to a deed sign without being in the same place or holding the same copy.

Section 45 defines a counterpart. It is a copy of the document that includes the entire content of the document, and it need not include the signatures or seals of the other parties. Section 55 then provides that a document that is to have effect as a deed for a person may be signed by or for that person by signing a counterpart or a true copy of it.

The Queensland Law Society describes the result. Deeds can be made in counterparts and by split execution, and each signatory can sign an identical copy of the deed that need not contain a signature of any other person. Split execution is the version of that idea that matters to companies: the two officers who sign for a corporation under section 52 do not have to put their signatures on the same copy.

Combined with section 50, these sections describe the ordinary modern signing: each party receives the full document electronically, signs their own copy, and the copies together make up the deed.

Delivery is the last requirement. A signed deed is not yet a deed in force. Section 49 requires delivery in accordance with section 56.

Delivery has nothing to do with couriers. Under section 56 it is a matter of intention: the intention to be legally bound by the deed, either immediately or subject to the fulfilment of a condition. The section is careful about the relationship between signing and delivery. The execution of a document in the form of a deed does not, of itself, constitute delivery, unless it appears that the execution was intended to constitute delivery.

That drafting has a practical use. Documents are often signed ahead of the event they relate to. Under section 56 a signature alone does not bind the signatory; what binds is the intention that the deed take effect, which may be immediate or may wait on a condition.

Powers of attorney: the line through the middle

Powers of attorney are where the Act draws its most careful line.

Section 46 takes enduring documents under the Powers of Attorney Act 1998 out of the Division altogether. Section 47 then deals with ordinary powers given by individuals. Each of two documents made by an individual must be a physical document, signed by the individual in the presence of a witness: a general power of attorney made under the Powers of Attorney Act 1998, and a power of attorney given under a deed.

The exception is commercial. A document containing a power of attorney given by an individual under a deed may be an electronic document, electronically signed, if two conditions are met: the document is part of a commercial or other arms-length transaction, and the power is given for the purpose of that transaction. The Queensland Law Society adds that a document may be characterised as part of such a transaction even if it is executed at a different time from, and is separate to, the other documents.

Businesses are treated differently from individuals. The Society's table records that powers of attorney for businesses, meaning corporations, partnerships and unincorporated associations but not sole traders, can be signed electronically, in counterparts and by split execution, and without a witness.

Enduring powers of attorney stay where they were. The Society's table says an enduring power must be in an approved form and signed by the principal, cannot be witnessed electronically, and remains subject to the formal requirements of section 44 of the Powers of Attorney Act 1998.

Guarantees, and how long a deed can be sued on

Two provisions outside Division 1 matter to anyone who signs a deed in a property transaction.

Guarantees. Section 69 provides that a guarantee is not enforceable in a proceeding unless the guarantee is in writing, or its terms are recorded in writing, and the guarantee or written record is signed by the party against whom it is sought to be enforced. The explanatory notes say the writing and signature may be electronic, by reference to the Electronic Transactions (Queensland) Act 2001.

The limitation period. The 2023 Act shortened the life of a deed as a cause of action. MinterEllison's summary explains that section 10 of the Limitation of Actions Act 1974 long provided that an action on a deed must be brought within 12 years, and that the new Act reduces the period to six years. The explanatory notes give the reason: to match the limitation period for contracts.

The change is not retrospective. According to the same summary, a transitional provision applies the new period to deeds made after the commencement of the Act, so that deeds made before 1 August 2025 remain subject to the 12 year period. A deed signed in July 2025 and a deed signed in September 2025 therefore have different lifespans, and the date on the document decides which rule applies.

For anyone who once chose a deed over a simple contract partly for the longer period, that reason has gone for new documents. The other characteristics of a deed are untouched.

What stayed on paper

The limits of the electronic framework come mostly from other statutes. The Queensland Law Society's table collects them.

Wills. The Society's table cites section 10 of the Succession Act 1981: a will must be in writing and signed by the testator, and it cannot be witnessed electronically.

Affidavits and statutory declarations. These sit in between. They can be signed electronically where the witness is physically present. They can also be witnessed over an audio visual link, but only by a special witness or a prescribed person, and with procedural requirements. The table lists the special witnesses: an Australian legal practitioner; a government legal officer who is an Australian lawyer; a notary public; and a justice of the peace or commissioner for declarations employed by the law practice that prepared the document. After confirming a document witnessed by audio visual link, the witness must give the document, a true copy or a counterpart to the relevant person, and there are requirements to keep the original physical version. A document made this way is effective from the time the signatory signs, even if the witness confirms it on a later day.

The registry exception. A statutory declaration lodged or deposited in the land registry or the register of water allocations must be physically signed, and must otherwise be made, signed and witnessed in accordance with the Oaths Act. The Society adds that electronic signatures on statutory declarations can be used for a land or water dealing only where e-conveyancing is used.

Where the land register fits

The electronic deed framework and the land register are separate systems. The Act says so itself. Section 48 provides that the Division does not limit or otherwise affect the way in which documents are validly executed under the Land Act 1994 or the Land Title Act 1994.

The Queensland Law Society draws the consequence. Deeds lodged or deposited in relation to land and water dealings must continue to be executed in accordance with those two Acts. The same goes for a general power of attorney, or a power of attorney under a deed, that is used for a land or water dealing. Section 58 of the 2023 Act deals with the deposit of a deed in a registry, and provides for a copy of an electronic deed to be certified as a true copy by a person of a specified kind before it is lodged.

Mortgages show how the two systems meet. The Society describes e-conveyancing as allowing the instruments and documents needed for property transactions to be digitally prepared, signed, settled and lodged. When a mortgage is lodged that way, the lender must obtain and hold a duplicate of the mortgage, on the same terms, signed by the borrower. The table says that duplicate can be made as an electronic document and signed electronically, without any witnessing, provided it complies with the deed provisions. It cites the provision of the 1974 Act for that condition, and had not been updated to the new numbering when it was read.

What the framework does not settle

A statute that removes formalities shifts weight onto evidence. A witness to a paper deed is a person who can later say who signed. An electronic deed signed without one has no such person, and proof of who signed rests on whatever record the signing method leaves. Part 6 answers the question of validity. It does not answer the question of proof, and the reliability limb of the accepted method is the place where the two meet.

The framework also leaves each party free to decline. Because an accepted method needs the consent of all the signatories, the electronic route depends on agreement.

And the Act is Queensland law. This guide describes the Queensland statute only.

A deed made after 1 August 2025 can be signed on a screen without a witness, and can be sued on for six years, not twelve.

For property dealings the result is a statute in which the instrument most associated with ceremony can be completed by people in different places on the same afternoon, alongside a short, deliberate list of documents for which Queensland law still asks for a physical signature and a witness in the room.

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.

About Kooky and Shaka →