A drama that reflects the turmoil of the last ten years of PAMDA madness is unfolding around tonight’s cutover to the new residential real estate contract rules.

Queensland’s legal and real estate industries are in a state of nervousness largely because of complex transitional provisions.

The Queensland Law Society warned members in an e-mail bulletin on Wednesday: “As 30 September approaches, it is critical practitioners act quickly to manage this risk for new residential contracts”.

Real estate form providers ADL & REIQ have been circularising agencies for weeks about the implications of the new rules and new forms.

The new form 30C and the new BCCM 14 Information Sheet that are required to be attached to residential contracts formed from 1 October, have not yet been publicly released. The OFT say they will release them on their website on Friday morning!

The QLS has warned that the new forms may “NOT be substantially the same as the current form version”. Having seen the forms, we can assure readers they are substantially different.

Adding to the tension is a Supreme Court ruling on Tuesday that brings put & call options back under the PAMDA umbrella.

A major ingredient in the unease relates to the 5:00pm deadline today for terminations of any “non-compliant” signed contracts in ADL or REIQ format. If not cancelled by then, they can’t later be terminated unless termination is permitted under the new PAMDA rules.

But the most hazardous feature of the changeover is that there is no transitional arrangement for “proposed contracts” signed by a buyer before 1 October but not yet signed by the seller. It’s anyone’s guess as to how many contracts will fall into this trap.

All this on top of the $1.5 billion cost to the Queensland economy of the PAMDA absurdity already!

Warning: If a proposed contract has been signed by a buyer before 1 October but the seller hasn’t signed it or the contract hasn’t been “formed”, a new form 30C should be prepared on 1 October and attached to the contract etc for presentation under the new PAMDA rules. New rules all over again.