Three deadline methods
Each card holds what one state’s official pages say about one method. They are not three versions of the same thing, and a rule on one card does not carry over to another.
Expression of interest
- Where the rules come from
- NSW Fair Trading’s rules of conduct for agents.
- The deposit
- An expression of interest deposit is paid before contracts are exchanged and shows you the buyer is serious. It binds neither the buyer to buy nor you to sell, and it is refundable.
- What binds
- Exchange of contracts, after which sellers in NSW have no cooling-off.
Tender
- Where the rules come from
- The Northern Territory’s page on ways to sell, and the ACT’s law on cooling-off for home sales.
- How offers come in
- Submitted by buyers and all considered at a specified time (NT).
- Cooling-off
- In the ACT, a contract for a home sold by tender carries no cooling-off period.
Fixed-date sale
- Where the rules come from
- Consumer Affairs Victoria and Victorian law.
- How offers come in
- By the date and time you set.
- Your price
- Your lowest acceptable price is called your reserve, the same word as at auction.
Expressions of interest in NSW: what the agent owes you
NSW sets rules for an agent who takes an expression of interest deposit. Before accepting one, the agent needs a signed written statement from the person paying it, confirming they were given the information the rules require and understand it. If a later offer is made for the property, the agent must promptly tell that person.
An agent acting for you, the vendor, must also:
- promptly tell you that an expression of interest deposit has been paid;
- tell the person who paid it that they may keep making offers until contracts are exchanged;
- refund the deposit within 14 days once someone else has entered a contract for the property.
Taken together, an expression of interest deposit does not stop later offers, which the agent must tell the depositor about, and NSW’s page says plainly that it does not oblige you to sell.
Victoria’s fixed-date sale under the new price rules
Victoria’s new price rules started on 1 October 2026, and for auctions and fixed-date sales they apply to sales held on and from 16 October 2026: your agent publishes your reserve at least 7 days before the sale date, and the sale cannot go ahead without the full 7 days. Three points reach the seller directly:
- Once published, the reserve in effect becomes the advertised price, because the advertised price must not be lower than it.
- Victorian law does not require the agent’s estimate of the selling price and your reserve to be the same amount.
- Once the sale is unconditional, the agent publishes the final sale price in the Property Price Statement, the document that replaced the Statement of Information, and keeps it online free of charge for at least 18 months.
In Victoria, then, choosing a fixed-date sale means your lowest price is public at least a week before the deadline.
A later change is due: from 1 June 2027, agents will have to make the section 32 vendor statement available at least 14 days before a fixed-date sale.
Where the official pages are silent
The pages this guide is built from do not say how tender offers are opened or accepted outside the Northern Territory, whether a buyer gets cooling-off after a tender outside the ACT, how expressions of interest work outside NSW, or whether a Victorian fixed-date sale carries the buyer’s cooling-off. Those are questions for your state’s fair trading or consumer affairs body and for the solicitor or conveyancer who prepares your contract.