Franchise sale & purchase in Victoria.

Franchising in Australia is governed by the Franchising Code of Conduct, a mandatory industry code under the Competition and Consumer Act. Before you sign or pay a non-refundable deposit, the franchisor must give you a disclosure document, the franchise agreement, the Code itself, a key facts sheet and the information statement, and then wait 14 days. There is also a seven-day cooling-off period after signing a new franchise agreement.

For a buyer, the real work is in reading those documents together. The disclosure document tells you how many franchisees have left the system in the last three years, what the franchisor's litigation history is, what the marketing fund spends money on, and whether the site lease can even be assigned to you. The franchise agreement tells you the term, the renewal position, the territory, the royalty and marketing levies, the supplier restrictions, the restraint of trade and what happens at the end.

For a seller, the franchise agreement usually requires the franchisor's written consent to transfer. That means the buyer must be approved and trained, arrears cleared, the premises lease assigned, a transfer fee paid and a deed of consent and release signed. We run all of that in parallel with the business sale contract so settlement is not held up by the franchisor.

Sign nothing and pay nothing until the 14-day disclosure period has run. A deposit paid early is often the moment your negotiating position disappears, and the Code's protections are hard to claim back afterwards.