Buying and selling a property

Find out what existing services and charges apply to the property you want to buy from our certificates, documents and diagrams. Get them at Sydney Water Tap in® or from a Property Link broker.

It’s important to know if private water and wastewater pipes are shared with other customers, or if pipes go across a neighbour's land. Ask your conveyancer to see if there's an easement. An easement gives you the legal right to access your pipes for repairs or maintenance. It may also stop other landowners from building over your pipes.

Extra obligations may include cooperating with neighbours to manage joint services, or making sure you have permission to access land when you need to maintain your pipes. You may have extra obligations around maintaining your service if your new property has any private services that are:

• joint – where the private pipe serves more than one customer
• encroaching – where the private pipe is laid on another customer's land without an easement or legal access agreement
• extended – where a long line of private pipe is needed because the property isn't near our water main.

• If you're using a conveyancer
  Conveyancers normally purchase a conveyancing certificate from us. It lists any outstanding charges on the property being sold, which helps you and the seller pay correctly adjusted Sydney Water charges. It also ensures you're only responsible for new charges after the settlement date. Your conveyancer may arrange a special meter reading to ensure that the water usage charge is accurate at the settlement date.
• If you're not using a solicitor or conveyancer
  Buy a conveyancing certificate online from a Property Link broker. You can also use our charges and water usage calculators to work out a water usage adjustment. Find the current cost of a conveyancing certificate.

When NSW Land Registry Services lets us know you're the new owner, we'll send you your account details. Home owners get them on their welcome letter or first bill. Business owners get them on their first bill. Once you've received your account details, you can register for My Account to go paperless, make payments, set up direct debit, update payment details, arrange payment extensions, check your balance, see billing and payment history and more.

We generally read meters and send bills every quarter. Payment is due 21 days after we send the bill. Your first bill will arrive following the first meter reading after settlement.

• If you receive a bill for the previous owner, you can ignore it.
• If you'd prefer us to send your bill to a managing agent or another address, you can make mailing address changes.
• If you have questions about charges on your first bill, contact your conveyancer or call us on 13 20 92 8am–5:30pm Monday to Friday (except public holidays).

We don't turn off water between owners. If the property's already connected to standard services covered by our Customer Contract (6 MB), those services will be ready to use. Standard services include:

• normal connections to gravity sewers without pumps or tanks
• normal connections to water services at standard pressure and without pumps or extended lines of private pipe.

If the property has non-standard services (such as trade wastewater), we'll send you a new connection agreement when we're informed the property's changed hands. Ask the seller's agent and your conveyancer about connection conditions you should know about.

You must provide us with accurate descriptions of the business activities you or your tenants will be performing, as you may have additional trade waste obligations. We'll determine the types of connections you or your tenants need.

If you need a new type of connection (like applying for permission to discharge commercial trade wastewater or industrial trade wastewater), please check your application requirements and apply at Sydney Water Tap in.