Buyer Wants a Bedroom Door After Unconditional: Do I Have to Install It?

In 2017 I sold a two-bedroom unit in Brisbane. The buyer went unconditional after a building inspection and a finance approval. Two days before settlement, their solicitor emailed my agent: "Can the seller install an interior bedroom door? The buyer noticed it's missing." I said no. They settled on time, and the buyer hung their own door the following weekend.

That's the short answer. I've sold six properties over twenty years as a landlord, and two of those buyers made a post-unconditional request. Both times the answer was no.

What "unconditional" actually means

When a contract goes unconditional, all the buyer's conditions are satisfied or waived. Those conditions usually cover finance, building and pest inspections, and sometimes a cooling-off period. Once they're done, the buyer has accepted the property in its current state. That's what "as-is" means.

In practice, the buyer had every chance to inspect the property before signing. If they missed a missing door during the inspection, or if they saw it and still went ahead, they can't come back later and ask for a new one. In 2017, that buyer's building report even listed the missing door as a minor item. They didn't raise it then.

I once had a buyer ask for a new letterbox and a garden shed after unconditional. They were testing the waters, hoping I'd cave because I wanted the sale to close.

The contract is your only obligation

I'm not a lawyer, but in most Australian states, the standard form contract doesn't include a clause about installing interior doors. If you signed a standard REIQ or state-based contract, there's no obligation to make improvements after unconditional. If the contract had a special condition like "seller to install all missing interior doors before settlement", then yes, you'd have to. But that's unusual. In dozens of contracts I've read, I've never seen that clause.

Check your local rules, but the starting point is simple: read the contract. If the door isn't mentioned, the request is just a request.

Can they pull out?

No, they can't. The buyer's right to terminate ended when the contract went unconditional. If they refuse to settle because you won't add a door, they're in breach. In that case, you could keep the deposit and potentially claim damages for any loss on resale. The deposit is usually 5% or 10% of the purchase price. That's a real amount they don't want to lose.

The buyer is free to install the door themselves after settlement. It's a straightforward job, and most buyers do it within a day or two.

How I'd handle the email

When I got that email in 2017, I replied through my agent with one line: "The property was sold unconditionally as inspected. Any items not included in the contract are not part of the sale." I didn't argue, didn't offer to negotiate, and didn't install a door.

If you want to be generous, you could leave a new door in the garage for them. But you have no obligation to do that, and I wouldn't set the precedent. In my second sale with a post-contract request, I offered to leave a spare door, and the buyer then asked for three more things.

In the Brisbane sale, the buyer installed their own door two days after settlement. It cost them a few hundred dollars and one trip to the hardware store. That's their expense, not yours.