Before you make an offer
- 1. Title search: the registered owner matches the seller. Read every registered interest.
- 2. Survey plan: the area and dimensions match the listing.
- 3. Council flood report and planning overlays for this exact address.
- 4. Building and pest inspection booked before you negotiate.
- 5. QBCC pool register: is a pool safety certificate current?
Before you sign
- 6. The Form 2 disclosure statement and certificates, in your hands.
- 7. The tenancy agreement, plus the body corporate certificate for a unit.
- 8. No inspection yet? Add a condition, and don't waive cooling-off early.
Before the contract goes unconditional
- 9. Body corporate records inspected. Allow up to 7 days.
- 10. QBCC home warranty search on a home built in the last 6.5 years.
- 11. Rental records: rent start date, smoke alarms, housing standards, pool certificate.
- 12. An insurance quote on this property. Some insurers price by postcode.
Investment property due diligence means reading a property's records before the purchase binds you. In Queensland, the seller's Form 2 disclosure statement covers things like zoning and any tenancy agreement. It doesn't have to cover structural soundness or flooding history, so those two checks fall to you. A rental must also meet minimum housing standards.
By Kayla Dale, Senior Property Manager and Sales Agent, FAA Property. Last reviewed 7 October 2026. General information only, not legal advice. Get your own legal advice before you sign a contract.
You've found a Queensland property you'd like to rent out. Before the contract binds you, there are records to read. The seller has to hand some of them over in the Form 2 disclosure statement, before you sign. The rest you order yourself: the title search, the council flood report, body corporate records for a unit and a home warranty search on a newer home. Each check below sits at the stage where a bad result can still change your mind. You'll see what that bad result looks like, and which FAA Property guide covers the check in more depth. If the property comes with a tenant, there's a section on what you inherit.
Before you make an offer: read the title and survey plan
Order a current title search from Titles Queensland, online or by phone. Online, it cost $25.71 excluding GST when we read the fee on 7 October 2026.
The search shows the current owners of the lot and its other registered interests, such as mortgages, easements, covenants, leases and caveats.
The registered owner should be the person or company selling to you, and every interest on the title should make sense to you. A caveat or an easement you can't explain is a question for your solicitor before you make an offer.
Get the survey plan image at the same time. It shows the location, dimensions and area of the parcel. Hold it against the listing. If the land area in the ad doesn't match the plan, ask why.
Before you make an offer: flood and planning overlays come from council
FloodCheck Queensland, the state's historic flood information site, says it shouldn't be used to work out flooding at the property level. It points you to the local council instead, and it's due to be replaced by a new portal. So the flood check for a property you're buying is a council check.
In Brisbane, that's the FloodWise Property Report. It shows the risk and type of flooding at an address, and council says its flood tools help people buying a property make informed decisions. Read past the headline result. Even where no river or creek flood level is assigned, flooding can still be a risk, including overland flow. The report only uses information council has adopted, so it may not be complete.
On the Sunshine Coast, council's flood risk mapping shows how much risk an individual property carries, beyond whether it sits inside a flood extent. The Development.i site report gives one property's zoning and overlay information, flooding overlays included, and council lists potential purchasers among its users.
Flood is one overlay among several. The Sunshine Coast Planning Scheme's overlays also cover acid sulfate soils, airport environs, bushfire hazard, coastal protection, heritage and character areas, and landslide hazard and steep land. Elsewhere in Queensland, read the overlay maps in your council's planning scheme. The seller's Form 2 statement gives you the zoning. Overlays you read from council.
New estates need extra care. Sunshine Coast Council notes there's often a lag before its flood mapping is updated in recently developed areas, so a clean result on a brand new lot tells you less.
Then get an insurance quote on this address. Sunshine Coast Council notes that some insurers price by postcode while others price the individual property. Cover is explained in investment property insurance.
Before you sign: the Form 2 statement, and what it leaves out
Since 1 August 2025, Queensland sellers have had to give buyers key information before a contract is signed, under the Property Law Act 2023. The statement and the prescribed certificates have to reach you before you sign. For an investor, read these parts closely:
The Form 2 statement
- Any residential tenancy or rooming accommodation agreement on the property
- The zoning of the lot
- Whether the land is on the contaminated land or environmental management registers
- For a lot in a community titles scheme, the community management statement and a body corporate certificate
- A pool safety certificate, where one applies
What it leaves out
Now the gap. Sellers don't have to tell you whether the building is structurally sound, or about the land's flooding history. Previous building and development approvals can be left out too.
The building check is yours. Queensland Government advice is to arrange inspections before you negotiate, so you know the condition and likely future costs when you offer. Use an inspector with a current QBCC licence. If the inspection can't happen early, you need contract terms that let you cancel on a poor report. Costs and timing are in building and pest inspection costs and timing in Queensland.
What if the statement never arrives, or it's wrong or incomplete? You may have a right to terminate the contract at any time up to settlement. For wrong or incomplete information, you'd need to show the issue was material, that you didn't know about it when you signed, and that you wouldn't have signed if you had known. Ask your solicitor before you act on it. More on the Queensland seller disclosure statement.
Before you sign: cooling-off is not your inspection window
The standard Queensland contract for buying a home gives you a 5 business day cooling-off period. Auctions have none. It starts the day you get a copy of the contract signed by both parties. End the contract in that time and you can be charged up to 0.25% of the purchase price.
That makes it an expensive place to start your checks. Have them done, or at least under way, before you sign.
You can choose to waive or shorten cooling-off. Being asked to do that before the records are in is a red result in the contract itself. The rules are in cooling-off periods in Queensland. If the push is coming from a seller or a promoter, read the warning signs of a property spruiker.
Before it goes unconditional: body corporate records and home warranty
Lodge both of these when you sign. The body corporate has 7 days from your written request and payment of the fee, and QBCC aims to respond within 7 working days if you give it all the information.
Body corporate records
Buying a unit or townhouse? Under the BCCM Act, a buyer can see or get copies of the body corporate's records. Put the request in writing and pay the fee, and the body corporate has 7 days to let you inspect them or give you a copy. Read the by-laws with a tenant in mind. A rental in a body corporate has to meet them as well as the minimum housing standards. Levies are covered in body corporate fees in Queensland, terms in strata and body corporate.
QBCC home warranty search
For a house built or renovated in the last six and a half years, ask QBCC for a home warranty search. As a prospective buyer, you can request it, or your solicitor or a search agent acting for you can. It shows whether the home has cover under the Queensland Home Warranty Scheme and, if so, whether a claim has been made. The fee was $54.84 per request when we read it on 7 October 2026. Past six and a half years, the policy has likely expired and the search may show nothing.
Buying a new build? The QBCC licensee register gives a builder's full licence history, and the contract checks are in house and land package contracts. For a home not yet built, see buying off the plan in Queensland.
Before it goes unconditional: the records a rental must already have
Checked against RTA guidance, 7 October 2026
Tenancy agreement
Buying with a tenant in place? A tenancy agreement doesn't automatically end when a rental is sold, and you take on whatever agreement is in place. On a fixed term, the tenant can stay to the end of it. The agreement should be in the seller's disclosure pack.
Rent start date
Ask for the date the current rent became payable. A change of owner doesn't reset the 12-month limit, so you can't raise the rent until at least 12 months after that date. See rent increase rules in Queensland.
Housing standards
Every Queensland rental has to meet minimum housing standards when the tenant moves in and for the whole tenancy. Check it against the minimum housing standards before you count on the rent.
Smoke alarms
Since 1 January 2022, Queensland's interconnected photoelectric smoke alarm rules have applied to every house leased or sold. Every bedroom needs one, so do hallways that connect bedrooms, and every level needs at least one. An alarm made more than 10 years ago, or one that fails when tested, must be replaced. The Queensland Government says a landlord who doesn't comply can't legally rent the property out. See Queensland smoke alarm rules.
Pool certificate
A home or townhouse with its own pool can't be leased unless a pool safety certificate is in effect. The free QBCC pool register shows whether one is current. Certificates last 2 years for a non-shared pool, 1 year for a shared one. Buy without one and you have 90 days from settlement to get it. For a shared pool, that falls to the pool owner, usually the body corporate. See pool safety certificates.
What this checklist leaves to other guides
Everything above is about records. A property can pass every check and still be the wrong buy, so these have their own guides:
- Whether the numbers work, holding costs included: running the numbers on an investment property
- Location, yield and vacancy: where to buy investment property in Queensland
- What a package costs, site costs included: house and land package costs
- Pressure selling, seminars and promoters: warning signs of a property spruiker
- The whole purchase, step by step: the steps to buying an investment property
When you have a property in mind to run these checks on, start with current investment property options.
Due diligence questions
What does due diligence mean when buying a property?
It's the checking you do before the purchase becomes binding, while a bad result can still change your decision. In Queensland, part of it comes from the seller in the Form 2 disclosure statement, which must reach you before you sign. The rest you order yourself, such as a title search, a council flood report, body corporate records and a building and pest inspection. Buying to rent? Add the standards the property must already meet.
What are red flags in due diligence?
Results in the records worth stopping for: a caveat or easement on the title you can't explain, land on the contaminated land or environmental management registers, no disclosure statement before you're asked to sign, overland flow risk where no river flood level is assigned, a past home warranty claim, no current pool certificate on a home you plan to lease, and a request to waive cooling-off early. Seller and promoter behaviour is in warning signs of a property spruiker.
If you'd like options to run these checks on, FAA Property sources new-build and house-and-land investment property across South East Queensland. It's a licensed Queensland real estate agency, OFT licence 4220395. FAA Property is paid by builders and developers when a purchase proceeds, and the strategy session costs you nothing.
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