Buying and selling at the same time is common across Sydney City, the Northern Beaches and Inner West, where owners upgrade or downsize within the same market. The legal challenge is coordinating two settlement dates without leaving you homeless or paying twice.
There's no single legal mechanism for buying and selling simultaneously, it's a coordination problem, solved through settlement timing, finance structuring, and sometimes a contingency clause written into one of the contracts.
The cleanest approach is negotiating your sale and purchase to settle on the same day, so sale proceeds fund the purchase. This requires close coordination between both conveyancers and often some flexibility from both other parties on the settlement date.
If your purchase settles before your sale, bridging finance can cover the gap, secured against both properties temporarily. If your sale settles first, you may need short-term accommodation or a rent-back arrangement with your buyer.
A subject-to-sale special condition can make your purchase contract conditional on your existing property selling by a set date. Not all vendors will accept this, particularly in a competitive Sydney property market, but it's worth negotiating if you need the certainty.
This is a real risk of unaligned contracts, which is why a subject-to-sale clause or bridging finance buffer is worth discussing before you exchange on the purchase.
It typically carries a higher interest rate than a standard home loan, so it's best used as a short-term bridge, not a long-term solution.
The earlier you tell your conveyancer you're doing both at once, the more options you have, settlement dates and special conditions are far easier to negotiate before exchange than to fix afterwards.
Get a fixed-fee quote and speak directly to the person who'll handle your matter.
This article is general information only and does not constitute legal advice. For advice on your specific circumstances, please get in touch.