What is an offer to purchase in South Africa?

Yes, once both sides have signed it. An offer to purchase is not a step towards a sale agreement. When the buyer has signed it and the seller has signed to accept it, it is the sale agreement, and no separate contract has to follow. Subject to the Act's own exceptions, section 2(1) of the Alienation of Land Act says a sale of land has no force unless it is in writing and signed by the parties, or by agents acting on their written authority. A sale at a public auction is one of those exceptions (section 3(1)). A signed offer to purchase can meet the writing requirement on its own; it generally needs the parties, the property and the price, which your attorney can confirm for your offer.

Binding does not mean every condition has been met. A signed offer can carry suspensive conditions, such as the buyer's bond approval, and those decide whether the sale goes ahead. Until the other side has signed, there is no signed sale agreement to rely on, so do not treat a spoken yes or a chat message as one.

Outside section 29A, which is covered below, we know of no right in the Alienation of Land Act to change your mind after you have signed. A better price down the road, or a relative talking you out of it, is not a reason to cancel. Whether any other statute could help is a question for an attorney, and the cooling-off section below says where we stop.

Offer to purchase or deed of sale? Both names are used for a written sale of land, and the Act's own term is a deed of alienation. Which name you meet depends on who drafts it: a longer agreement drawn up by a seller or a developer may be called a deed of sale. If you are asked to sign both for the same property, ask your attorney what the second one adds. The deed of transfer is a different thing again: it is registered later at the Deeds Office and is what moves ownership. What happens after you sign follows the sale from signature to registration.

Sign by hand. The Electronic Communications and Transactions Act says it must not be read as giving validity to an agreement for the alienation of immovable property (section 4(4) and Schedule 2, item 1). Read with section 2(1) of the Alienation of Land Act, which asks for the parties' signatures, the cautious course is a pen-and-paper signature from every party, not a typed name or a click-to-sign platform. No Act we cite uses the word "ink", so that is the cautious reading and not a statutory rule. We have not checked whether a later amendment or judgment has changed the exclusion, so ask your attorney to confirm it. What an offer to purchase must contain covers signing in more detail.

Someone has to draft it. With an estate agent, the agency usually supplies its own standard form. In a private sale there is no agency, so the buyer and the seller need to agree who gets it drawn up. Privately's Terms say the written offer to purchase is prepared and signed off the platform, through your chosen attorney.

The safest route is to ask a conveyancing attorney to draw it up, or to check a draft before either of you signs. You can find a conveyancing attorney on Privately.

Privately does not publish an offer to purchase template and does not draw one up for you. We are not a legal adviser. How to write one, and what it must contain, is covered in the offer to purchase decoded, a guide by a conveyancing attorney.

Search results for an offer to purchase are mostly downloadable forms. We read three of them in October 2026. One had no cooling-off clause. One wrote the price limit as "less than" R250 000, where the Act says the right is lost only if the price exceeds the limit. One summarised it accurately but briefly, leaving out the notice requirements and most of the exclusions. On who nominates the conveyancer, one named the buyer's conveyancer and two named the seller's (one of those sellers was a bank selling its own property).

So read any form before you sign it, starting with these five checks. The first comes straight from the Act. The last follows from section 2(1) read with the electronic signatures exclusion. The three in the middle are practical. None of them replaces an attorney reading the form.

• The cooling-off clause is there, and it is right. Section 2(2A), inserted by the 1998 amendment, says the deed of alienation shall contain the buyer's right to revoke under section 29A. Its text carries no price qualifier, and whether that matters where section 29A(5) takes a sale out is a question for an attorney. Check that the clause gives the amount, the five days and the exclusions as the section 29A part below does. What follows when the clause is missing is a legal question we do not answer. Ask your attorney.
• A bond condition with an amount and a date. If the buyer needs a loan, the offer should say how much, and by when approval must be granted. A condition with no date leaves both sides guessing when it ends. Subject to bond approval explains how the clause works.
• The property as it is in the title deed. The description should match the title deed: the erf number, or the unit and scheme name for sectional title, and the extent, not only the street address. That leaves nobody arguing later about what was sold.
• Who nominates the conveyancer. Forms differ, as the three we read show, so read what yours says. In those three the transfer costs were the buyer's, but check yours before you sign.
• Signatures by hand, from every party. The cautious course is a pen-and-paper signature, as the first section explains. If a company or a trust is a party, ask for proof that the person signing may sign for it.

For as long as the offer says. Look for a clause that states a date and time after which the offer lapses if the seller has not signed, check that it names a time as well as a day, and put any extension in writing, signed by both of you.

Wording differs. In FNB's form for buying a property the bank is selling (clause 2.2, read in October 2026), the offer is open until a stated time on the acceptance date, is not capable of withdrawal before then, and lapses if it is not accepted by then. Whether a clause like that holds, and what applies when an offer states no date at all, are questions for an attorney.

We do not set out a rule on the related questions, because they turn on the wording of the offer and on contract law: whether a buyer can withdraw a signed offer before the seller signs, and whether a seller can withdraw a counter-offer before the buyer signs. Ask an attorney before you withdraw anything, and before you rely on someone else not withdrawing.

Once both of you have signed, validity stops being the question. The offer is then the sale agreement, and the questions are the ones in the next section.

It depends on when you ask. Find your situation in the table, and speak to the person in the last column before you act, because walking away from a signed offer can itself be a breach.

A seller who has signed is bound in the same way as the buyer. We know of no rule that lets a seller cancel because a better offer arrives, and a seller who then signs with someone else may face a claim from the first buyer. What that claim can be worth depends on the offer and the facts, so a seller with a second offer in hand should call an attorney before replying.

Some offers carry a 72-hour clause that lets the seller keep looking while the first sale is still conditional. The subject to bond approval guide explains it.

Sometimes. Section 29A of the Alienation of Land Act gives some buyers five days after signing to revoke the offer, or to terminate the agreement if the seller has signed as well. The five days do not count the day of signing, any Saturday or Sunday, or any public holiday (section 29A(2)).

The notice has to be in writing, signed, unconditional and clear about which offer or agreement it ends, and the Act says it must be delivered to the seller or the seller's agent inside the five days (section 29A(1) and (3)). So the right does not end when the seller signs, and it is not one to leave to the last day.

For example, a buyer who signs on a Wednesday, with no public holiday in the way, has Thursday, Friday, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. A public holiday that falls on a weekday in that window pushes the last day out by one.

The right is for some buyers only. The Act sets three tests, and the sale has to pass all of them:

• The price is R250 000 or less. The Act lets the Minister prescribe a greater amount. We have not found a notice that does, but we cannot rule one out, so confirm the current figure with an attorney.
• The kind of land. For section 29A, the Act's definition of land includes land used or intended to be used mainly for residential purposes, lists some other interests, and leaves out agricultural land. This guide is written for a home purchase. For any other kind of property, ask an attorney whether the right applies.
• The buyer is a natural person. A company or a trust cannot use it.

Where it does not apply. Even where a sale passes those three tests, the Act excludes some purchases: a purchase at a publicly advertised auction, a repeat deal between the same parties on substantially the same terms, a purchase where the buyer reserved the right to nominate someone else, and a purchase made by exercising an option that was open for at least five days. Check the full list in the Act (section 29A(5)) before you rely on the right or give it up. We did not find an attorney's advice in that list as a reason to lose the right.

After notice. Anyone who received money from the buyer must refund it in full within 10 days of the day the notice was delivered. The right cannot be waived: the Act makes void any clause that tries to remove it, or to penalise a buyer for using it.

Do not count on it. A cooling-off clause in your offer does not mean the right applies to your sale. A price above the limit, a buyer that is a company or a trust, a property the Act's definition does not cover, or any of the exclusions takes the sale outside the section. Check your price and your situation against the three tests above. What follows when the section 2(2A) clause is missing, for example whether the offer is then void or can only be challenged, is a legal question we do not answer. Ask an attorney.

A second offer inside the five days. Sections 29A(8) to (10) deal with a buyer who signs an offer for other land inside the five days. As we read the Act, that buyer is then deemed to have exercised the right to revoke the first offer, and must give the first seller written notice "forthwith". Failing to give it, wilfully or negligently, is an offence for which the Act sets a fine, up to one year in prison, or both. It keeps the seller's civil remedies, and it says none of this applies to a buyer who in good faith intends to buy both properties. An attorney has not confirmed our reading, or what it means in practice, so treat this as a pointer to the text of the Act and not as an answer.

The Consumer Protection Act. Section 16 of that Act gives a cooling-off right for some direct marketing transactions. Whether it can ever apply to the sale of a home between private individuals is a legal question we cannot answer, so do not plan around it. Section 29A is the right to check first, and an attorney can tell you whether anything else applies.

What an offer to purchase must contain is written up in full by a conveyancing attorney. This is the short version: six headings a sound offer covers in practice. They are not a checklist set by the Act, which asks for a signed writing (section 2(1)).

• Fixtures and fittings. Say what stays and what goes, with a short list. Whether an item counts as a fixture is often arguable, and a list stops an argument at handover. The contents guide covers the fixtures and fittings dispute.
• Voetstoots and disclosure. A voetstoots ('as is') clause says the buyer takes the property as it stands. Seller disclosure and the voetstoots clause explains what it does and does not protect a seller from.

Conditions. A suspensive condition makes the sale depend on something happening by a date written into the offer, most often the buyer's bond approval. Subject to bond approval explains what happens when the date passes, who can waive or extend a condition and how the 72-hour clause works.

Occupation. The occupation date is when the buyer may move in, and it can differ from the date of transfer. If it does, the offer should say who pays occupational rent for the gap, and how much, as a rand figure; occupational rent in South Africa explains how the amount is set.

Privately is a marketplace, not an estate agent, and it does not draw up your offer to purchase. A buyer can make an offer through the platform on a published listing, and the seller can accept, reject or counter it. Privately's Terms say that offers made this way are not a binding offer to purchase. They describe a seller's acceptance in the platform as an expression of intent and an instruction to draw up the written agreement through your chosen attorney.

So the order is this. The buyer makes an offer in the app and the seller accepts it. An attorney draws up the written offer to purchase, and both of you sign it by hand. The conveyancer then takes the sale through to registration. Until the paper is signed, an acceptance in the app is not the signed sale agreement. The Terms also say either party may withdraw an offer made in the app at any time before the written offer to purchase is signed. That is a rule for offers in the app, not a statement of what the law allows once a written offer has been signed. See how to sell your house privately and how to buy a house privately for the whole path.

Once an offer is signed and any conditions are met, each side is expected to do what it says. If one side does not, what the other can do is set by the offer's breach clause and by contract law. The choice is often described as holding the other side to the sale, or cancelling it and claiming damages. We have not checked those remedies against case law for this guide, and which is open to you, after what notice and for how much, depends on the wording and the facts. Treat this as a list of questions for an attorney, not an answer.

Look for a clause on what happens to the deposit if the buyer defaults. Read the breach clause and the deposit clause before you sign, not when you need them. Before a deposit is paid, is it safe to sell privately shows how the emailed banking-details scam works.

A signed offer is binding the moment both sides sign it, so it is worth having a conveyancing attorney read it, or draw it up, first. They can check the things that cause disputes: a condition with no clear date, a missing or wrong section 29A clause, a fixtures list that says less than it should, and a breach or deposit clause that does not say what you think it says. Find a conveyancing attorney on Privately. This guide is general information, not legal advice.

This applies whether you are the seller or the buyer, and whether you found each other through an agent or privately.