The term Conveyancing comes from England and means the act of performing the various functions relating to the transfer of real property.
Simply put it is the process by which the ownership of a property is changed. The most common form is the purchase and sale of land and houses. It also includes transferring part of the ownership of a property, transferring property pursuant to a marriage break up and the gifting of property through a will.
In Queensland the buyer and seller sign a contract and the parties become bound once the buyer receives a fully signed copy of the contract. The contract will often then be subject to a number of conditions which if not met will cause the contract to end with the deposit being refunded to the buyer. This is the opposite to the system in NSW where the parties do not become bound until the contracts are exchanged. This would usually occur when all searches and enquiries had been undertaken (for more information on this see our newsletter on gazumping).
