AFTER THE SUNSET
In 2021, 20 Queensland buyers signed contracts for the off-the-plan townhouses in Coomera, believing the development would be finished within about 12 months. They waited five years, watched prices soar and thought their homes were finally within reach. Instead, buyers claim they’ve been left with nothing but refunded deposits after a Gold Coast developer allegedly tore up their contracts just as the homes neared completion. The buyers are now preparing for a Supreme Court confrontation over townhouses at Urbana Residences in Coomera, in a case set to put controversial sunset clauses back under the spotlight. A buyer’s best protection is the same one it has always been — a conveyancer who reads the fine print before the deadline, not after it.
The problem, in a rising market, is that a Sunset Clause (a provision in a contract that automatically ends or expires after a specified date) can be turned against buyers it was meant to protect. As Queensland prices climbed through the early 2020s, some developers worked out that a contract signed years earlier at a lower price was worth more dead than alive. Let a project drift toward its sunset date, trigger the clause, hand back the deposit, and re-list the finished product at today’s market value. The buyer walks away with their money returned and nothing else — priced out of the very market they had tried to enter years before. The deposit refund, in that scenario, is cold comfort. Most Queensland buyers don’t understand the issue until we explain it to them.
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The quiet dread of the sunset date
Conveyancing Home Queensland handles many off-the-plan files in Queensland and knows the quiet dread of the sunset date. It is the line in the contract that everyone signs past on the way to something exciting — a new apartment, a first block of land, a home that doesn’t exist yet — and then forgets about until, years later, it becomes the only line that matters.
In 2026 that line is once again at the centre of Queensland property, dragged there by a landmark court judgment, a government review that is still working its way through, and a persistent split in the law that leaves some buyers protected and others dangerously exposed. From our perspective, the sunset-clause debate is not a headline. It is a live risk we manage on real files, week after week.
What a Sunset Clause Actually Does — and Where It Went Wrong
A sunset clause is, at its origin, a fair thing. It sets a deadline — the sunset date — by which a development must reach a defined milestone: registration of the plan of subdivision, creation of a separate title, or settlement. If that milestone isn’t reached by the sunset date, either party may have a right to walk away, and the buyer typically gets their deposit back. The clause was designed to protect buyers from being locked indefinitely into a project that never gets built.
The problem, in a rising market, is that the same clause can be turned against the very buyer it was meant to protect. As Queensland prices climbed through the early 2020s, some developers worked out that a contract signed years earlier at a lower price was worth more dead than alive. Let a project drift toward its sunset date, trigger the clause, hand back the deposit, and re-list the finished product at today’s market value. The buyer walks away with their money returned and nothing else — priced out of the very market they had tried to enter years before. The deposit refund, in that scenario, is cold comfort.
The 2023 Reforms — and the Door They Left Open
Queensland responded in November 2023. Amendments to the Land Sales Act 1984, delivered through the Body Corporate and Community Management and Other Legislation Amendment Act, changed the rules for off-the-plan land contracts. From 22 November 2023, a seller can no longer unilaterally invoke a sunset clause to terminate a covered land contract for profit. Instead, termination is only permitted where the buyer gives written consent after receiving a proper sunset-clause notice, where the Supreme Court makes an order allowing it, or in other narrowly defined circumstances. Contracting out of these protections is prohibited and void. Crucially, the reforms apply not only to contracts signed after that date but to any covered contract still on foot on 22 November 2023.
That was a genuine consumer-protection win — and, from a conveyancing standpoint, it gave us something concrete to point to when advising land buyers. But the reform stopped at a line that matters enormously in practice, and it is the line most Queensland buyers don’t understand until we explain it to them.
This is the crux of the ongoing debate. The buyers arguably most exposed to sunset-clause misuse — apartment and townhouse purchasers in fast-appreciating inner-Brisbane and coastal projects — are precisely the ones the 2023 reforms left outside the tent. The Queensland Law Society has argued there is no logical justification for the distinction between off-the-plan apartment and land sales, and has continued to advocate for the protections to be extended to community-titles-scheme buyers. The building regulator has echoed growing industry support for closing the gap. For now, the gap remains.
The Review That Is Still Running
The debate the media keeps returning to has a formal channel. From September 2025, the Crisafulli Government opened a review of the 2023 sunset-clause reforms, with the Attorney-General inviting buyers, sellers, peak property bodies and legal stakeholders to give feedback through public surveys and submissions. The stated purpose was to evaluate whether the reforms are working effectively for both buyers and the development industry.
The review was framed around the existing land-contract reforms, but stakeholders — the Queensland Law Society foremost among them — have treated it as the obvious opportunity to press for the protections to be extended to apartments and other community-titles lots. Whether the Government ultimately moves to close that gap is, as at this writing, still unresolved. For conveyancers, the practical message is that the legislative ground may yet shift again, and files signed today should be advised on the law as it stands, not on a reform that may or may not arrive.
The Other Timing Trap: Section 217B
One protection that does reach apartment buyers is easy to overlook, and it is precisely the kind of detail we as conveyancers earn our fee by catching. Under section 217B of the Body Corporate and Community Management Act 1997, a buyer of a proposed community-titles lot may terminate if the seller has not settled by the earlier of the contractual sunset date or 5.5 years after the contract was entered into. That statutory long-stop gives an apartment buyer a right to walk — with their deposit — where a project drags on interminably, even though the 2023 Land Sales Act reforms don’t apply to them. It cuts the other way, too: it is a date the buyer needs to understand and diarise, not discover by accident.
The lesson across all of this is that “the sunset clause” is not one rule but a web of them — the contract’s own drafting, the Land Sales Act regime for land, the section 217B long-stop for community-titles lots, and a body of case law that reads escape provisions strictly. Which of those applies depends entirely on what, precisely, is being bought.
What This Means for us
For Queensland conveyancers, the sunset-clause debate is not academic. It changes how we open an off-the-plan file. The first question is no longer “when is the sunset date” but “what class of contract is this, and therefore which protections travel with it.” A vacant lot in a new estate, an apartment in a tower under construction, and a single house-and-land package can look similar to a buyer and sit in three different legal positions. Getting that classification right at contract-review stage — before the client signs — is the single most valuable thing we do on these transactions.
The Broader Backdrop
None of this sits in isolation. Queensland remains one of the country’s stronger-performing markets in 2026, with Brisbane holding firm and regional Queensland running well above the national pace — exactly the conditions in which a signed-cheap, now-valuable off-the-plan contract tempts a developer to reach for the sunset clause. At the same time, construction delays, labour constraints and cost escalation are pushing real projects toward their sunset dates for entirely legitimate reasons, which makes the line between honest delay and opportunistic termination harder to draw and more important to test. And the May 2026 federal budget’s investor reforms — the negative-gearing and capital-gains changes taking effect from July 2027 — are prompting a wave of portfolio restructuring that puts even more off-the-plan and transfer documentation across our desks.
The through-line is the one this masthead keeps returning to: the contracts crossing the conveyancer’s desk in 2026 are more complex, more consequential, and less forgiving of inattention than they were a few years ago. The sunset clause is the sharpest illustration of that. A single provision, buried in the fine print, can decide whether a buyer keeps the home they signed for or is handed back a deposit and shown the door. Knowing which is which — before the pen touches the page — is the craft.
Lastly,…
The sun has not set on this debate. Some of court cases have shown the courts will hold developers to the strict terms of their own contracts; a protection regime remains half-built, stopping short of the apartment buyers who may need it most; and a government review hangs over the whole field, promising change that has not yet come. Until it does, the buyer’s best protection is the same one it has always been — a conveyancer who reads the fine print before the deadline, not after it.
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THE CONVEYANCER’S SUNSET-CLAUSE CHECKLIST FOR OFF-THE-PLAN BUYERS
Classify the contract first. Is it a proposed land lot, a community-titles apartment, or a house-and-land package? The class decides which statutory protections apply — and whether the 2023 reforms cover the buyer at all.
Read the sunset date and, just as importantly, who can trigger it and on what conditions.
For apartment buyers, diarise the section 217B long-stop — the earlier of the contractual sunset date or 5.5 years from contract — and explain it plainly to the client.
Watch for long or repeatedly extendable sunset dates. An open-ended or easily extended date is a red flag that shifts risk onto the buyer.
Research the developer’s completion tracks record and the realism of the timeframe for the project type. A sunset date that can’t realistically be met invites the problem it’s meant to prevent.
Advise on the law as it stands today, while flagging that the Government’s review may extend protections to apartments. Don’t let a client rely on a reform that hasn’t arrived.
Conveyancing Home Queensland, your legal property professionals, with multilingual lawyers – e: info@conveyancinghome.com.au – Call 0732362852 | 8/320 Adelaide Street, BRISBANE