What changes when you sell in Brisbane

The footpath permit does transfer, and you hold the key to it

Council allows a footpath dining permit to be transferred where you are buying or leasing the food business. Three conditions apply: your written consent as the current permit holder, the incoming operator holding a food business licence, and no unapproved modification of the premises.

A new footpath dining permit costs $1,099.70, with a footpath occupation fee of $171.30 to $596.15 per square metre a year by zone. In the malls, annual consent runs at $954.75 per square metre in the Queen Street Mall and $289.25 per square metre in the Brunswick Street and Chinatown malls. A 10 per cent small business discount may apply. Because the permit can be worth thousands of dollars a year in trading area, put your consent in the contract rather than leaving it to goodwill.

Infrastructure charges follow the use, not the owner

Brisbane City Council assesses a material change of use under Brisbane City Plan 2014. Where the change generates extra demand on trunk infrastructure, infrastructure charges are payable, with a demand credit for the demand placed by buildings, hardstand and land that lawfully existed on the site. The current instrument is the Brisbane Infrastructure Charges Resolution (No. 15) 2026, which commenced 1 July 2026.

This is the quiet one in older stock. A warehouse turned into a gym, a showroom turned into a food premises, or an industry use turned into a shop can trigger an application and a net charge, and the size of that charge depends on the credited lawful use. In the industrial south, where tenancies have been repurposed over decades, the lawful use of record and the actual use are not always the same thing.

Your flood planning area is now a commercial term

The Brisbane City Plan 2014 flood overlay puts land into one of five flood planning areas, from FPA1 where flooding is very likely or very deep, through to FPA5 where flooding is possible but there is no recent history, plus a separate local overland flow class. Council maps river flood, creek and waterway flood, overland flow and storm tide as four separate mechanisms, and amends the mapping catchment by catchment. The latest published minor amendment package, v34.00/2025, was adopted 12 August 2025 and took effect 19 September 2025 for the Breakfast Creek, Jindalee Creek and Lota Creek catchments.

The free per property document is the FloodWise Property Report. Note that council warns its flood awareness property parcel data is not intended for due diligence or conveyancing, and directs buyers to lodge a planning and development certificate application. In February 2022, 23,400 properties across 177 suburbs were affected, against 14,100 properties and 94 suburbs in January 2011. Rainfall across the council area over four to five days ran from 400 to 1,100 millimetres, averaging 795 millimetres. Buyers now read flood status through insurance cost, lease terms, make good and stock storage practice.

Trade waste is Urban Utilities, not council, and the transfer position is unclear

Water, sewerage and trade waste in the Brisbane City Council area are handled by Urban Utilities. A trade waste approval is required for any business discharging anything other than domestic strength wastewater to sewer, which takes in food premises with grease traps, mechanical workshops, printers, laundries, food manufacturers and metal finishers.

What is not clear is what happens on a change of owner. The Urban Utilities trade waste pages did not render a usable position on whether an approval transfers with the business, or on what terms, so nothing is claimed here. Ask Urban Utilities directly and get the answer in writing before you set a settlement date.