When Do I Pay the 10% Deposit After Signing a Property Contract?
The 10% deposit is due at exchange of contracts, not later — how exchange, trust holding and cooling-off risk work, and what still varies by state.
When do I pay the 10% deposit after signing a property contract?
You don’t usually pay the deposit on some later date after you’ve put your signature on the contract — it’s due at exchange of contracts, and for most private treaty purchases that’s the same event as signing, or happens within a short window immediately after. Exchange is the moment the contract becomes legally binding: your signed copy and the seller’s signed copy are formally swapped, usually by the conveyancers or solicitors acting for each side, and the deposit is expected around that same point rather than on a separate later date. Exactly how “signing” and “exchange” line up depends on the state. NSW’s own guidance states plainly that “at the time of the exchange you will be required to pay a deposit,” and the Northern Territory follows the same pattern — two signed copies are exchanged, and the contract “is not binding until the copies are exchanged.” Other states don’t use a formal “exchange” step at all: Victoria and Queensland treat the contract as binding once both parties have signed it, and in Victoria the deposit is often requested earlier still — when you make your signed written offer, before the seller has necessarily countersigned. Western Australia goes further again: no deposit is legally required under its standard offer-and-acceptance process at all, though one is almost always negotiated.
Given that spread, have your deposit ready from the moment you sign, and confirm the exact sequence with your own conveyancer or solicitor beforehand. At auction it’s more straightforward: the contract becomes binding on the fall of the hammer, and the full deposit is due that same day.
What “exchange of contracts” actually means
Exchange is the formal swap of two identical, signed copies of the contract between buyer and seller. It’s usually handled by the conveyancers or solicitors acting for each party rather than the buyer and seller handing documents to one another directly. Before exchange, either side can generally withdraw without penalty — a contract signed by only one party isn’t yet binding on anyone. Once exchange happens, both sides are committed, subject only to any cooling-off right or condition written into the contract itself.
Does the deposit have to be exactly 10%?
No. Ten per cent is market convention rather than a general legal requirement, in every state and territory. Consumer Affairs Victoria puts it plainly: “there are no laws about the amount of deposit but it is usually 10 per cent of the purchase price”, and the NSW Government’s own guidance uses the same “usually” framing. The actual figure is whatever the contract specifies, and it can be negotiated — particularly before an auction begins, since auction contract terms can’t be changed once the hammer falls.
A small number of narrow statutory exceptions exist outside an ordinary established-home purchase, and none of them turn 10% into a general rule: Victoria’s Sale of Land Act caps an off-the-plan deposit at a maximum of 10% of the lot’s purchase price (a ceiling, not a mandated amount), and requires that deposit to be held on trust for the purchaser until the plan of subdivision registers. Whether Queensland’s and the Northern Territory’s instalment-contract provisions set a 10–20% statutory deposit-definition limit is a question for the relevant state legislation — check the Queensland Property Law Act 2023 and the NT Law of Property Act directly, or ask your conveyancer for the section that applies. Whether Western Australia’s Trustees Act sets a minimum one-tenth deposit for a trustee vendor-finance sale is a question for the WA legislation directly — check the WA Trustees Act 1962 or ask your conveyancer for the section that applies. Some buyers negotiate a smaller deposit than 10% anyway, and government-backed pathways can reduce the cash needed at this stage further still: a buyer using the Australian Government’s 5% Deposit Scheme can put down as little as 5% (2% for eligible single parents and legal guardians), because the guarantee covers the lender’s risk instead of a bigger deposit.
Where does the deposit actually go?
The deposit isn’t paid to the seller directly. It’s normally held by a stakeholder — the selling agent or a solicitor’s or conveyancer’s trust account — until settlement, precisely because the sale isn’t finished yet.
Consumer Affairs Victoria sets this out explicitly: if an agent is managing the sale, they must hold your deposit in their own trust account or pass it to the seller’s solicitor’s or conveyancer’s trust account; without an agent, it goes into a special-purpose account held in both your and the seller’s names, or straight into the solicitor’s or conveyancer’s trust account. Consumer Protection WA describes the mirror-image version when there’s no agent — the deposit goes into the trust account of the buyer’s own nominated settlement agent or solicitor, not to the seller directly. The Northern Territory’s approved contract of sale must likewise record the deposit amount and where it’s held in trust, and Victoria’s off-the-plan rules go further still, requiring the deposit to be held on trust for the purchaser specifically until the plan of subdivision registers. The exact mechanics differ by state and by whether an agent is involved, so before you sign, it’s worth confirming with your conveyancer exactly who will hold your deposit and on what terms it’s released.
What happens if I need to withdraw during the cooling-off period?
As at July 2026, cooling-off arrangements differ substantially by state and territory — there’s no single “Australian cooling-off period.” NSW, VIC, QLD, SA and the ACT each have a statutory cooling-off period with its own withdrawal-cost mechanism, while the Northern Territory requires one as government-mandated contract practice, with no dedicated cooling-off Act and no penalty for withdrawing within it. Western Australia and Tasmania have no statutory cooling-off period at all — one only exists if it’s negotiated into the contract. Outside of an applicable cooling-off period, or where none applies, there’s no automatic right to walk away without breaching the contract.
| State/territory | Cooling-off period | Cost to withdraw |
|---|---|---|
| NSW | 5 business days from exchange | 0.25% of the purchase price |
| VIC | 3 clear business days from signing | Greater of $100 or 0.2% |
| QLD | 5 business days from receiving the contract | Up to 0.25% of the price |
| SA | 2 clear business days (“prescribed time”) | Vendor may retain only up to $100 |
| WA | No statutory period — contract only | N/A unless negotiated |
| TAS | No statutory period — optional clause only | N/A unless negotiated |
| ACT | 5 working days | 0.25% of the purchase price |
| NT | 4 business days | No penalty |
None of these periods apply if you buy at auction. NSW extends its period to 10 business days for an off-the-plan purchase, and the right can be waived entirely if a solicitor certifies the waiver under section 66W — the 0.25% withdrawal cost itself is fixed separately under the same Act. Victoria’s period doesn’t apply to a sale at a public auction, or within three clear business days before or after one. Queensland’s doesn’t apply where a registered bidder buys privately within two business days of a passed-in auction.
South Australia’s right can be waived where the buyer has taken independent legal advice from a solicitor, and doesn’t apply to a sale by auction. Its corporate-buyer exclusion is narrower than it sounds, too: it only strips the cooling-off right where a corporation buys land other than residential land, so an ordinary home bought by a corporate buyer in SA still carries the same cooling-off right as anyone else. Its $100 figure is a cap on what the vendor may retain, not a percentage-based fee, so don’t read it as comparable to NSW’s or the ACT’s 0.25%. The ACT similarly excludes a corporate buyer, and its cooling-off right can be waived or shortened once a lawyer certifies it. Western Australia and Tasmania have no statutory cooling-off period, so any right to change your mind there exists only if you and the seller wrote one into the contract before signing — the buying process genuinely differs state to state here, so check your own state or territory’s position rather than assuming any of the above applies to you.
What else is usually sorted out around the same time
By the time you’re signing and exchanging, most buyers have already engaged a conveyancer or solicitor, and often arranged a building and pest inspection. There’s no official published figure for what either service costs — pricing varies by firm, property and location — so it’s worth getting quotes rather than budgeting to a number seen online. Our guides cover what a conveyancer actually does, what conveyancing fees typically involve, and the other costs that sit around a purchase beyond the deposit itself.
Where this varies, and who to ask
The mechanics above — exact timing, trust arrangements, cooling-off rights — are set partly by state law and partly by your specific contract, so the details that apply to you depend on where you’re buying and what your contract says. A conveyancer or solicitor can confirm the precise deposit and exchange terms for your contract before you sign it, which is the right point to raise questions — not after you’ve already exchanged. For the earlier steps — working out how much deposit you need in the first place, and where exchange fits into the wider purchase — see our guides to how much deposit you need for a first home and the stages of buying a house in Australia.
