Register your brief · No cost to buyers
Why buy a business now
A wave of established business owners is reaching retirement and preparing to exit, which means more quality businesses are coming to market than at any time in recent memory.
Registering a brief is free to buyers and carries no obligation either way. Last updated 15 September 2026.
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A wave of established business owners is reaching retirement and preparing to exit, which means more quality businesses are coming to market than at any time in recent memory. For a buyer, that is opportunity: well run businesses with real history, real customers and real earnings, whose owners are motivated to hand over to the right person. Add Queensland's strong economic pipeline and it is a genuinely good time to be looking, provided you are registered and ready to move when the right one appears.
The Code, the 14 day rule, and the 42 days that decide whether you can buy at all
The instrument. The Franchising Regulations 2024 (Cth), registered as F2024L01605, commenced on 1 April 2025 with further provisions applying from 1 November 2025, replacing the previous Code. The ACCC states that the 1 November 2025 tranche covers disclosure of significant capital expenditure, specific purpose funds, a reasonable opportunity to achieve return on investment, compensation for early termination, and restraint of trade clauses. A franchise system in 2026 has had to rewrite its documents twice inside 18 months, so ask for the current disclosure document rather than last year’s.
The disclosure document, and the 14 days. It follows Schedule 1 to the Regulations and includes the franchisor’s solvency statement, setup and operating costs, supply restrictions and rebates, legal actions involving the franchisor, future capital expenditure including significant expenditure, and contact details for current and former franchisees. It must be given at least 14 days before the franchise agreement is signed. Section 23(6) frames the same period from the other side: “The franchisor must not execute the franchise agreement with the prospective franchisee before the end of the period (the consideration period) of 14 days after the latest” of the specified dates. Section 23(8) requires the franchisor to repay an amount within 14 days after receiving a repayment request made during that period. One item in that document is worth more to you than the rest: the contact details for current and former franchisees. Call them.
How often the document is updated, and an inconsistency worth knowing about. The ACCC states two rules. For agreements entered from 1 April 2025 onward, the update is due “within 4 months of the first day of the franchisor’s financial year”. For earlier agreements, it is due “within 4 months after the end of the franchisor’s financial year”. Those two formulations point to different dates. Both are set out here as the ACCC states them, and neither is adopted over the other. Ask the franchisor which basis it uses and when the document in your hands was last updated, and have your solicitor read sections 22, 23 and 93 of F2024L01605 before you rely on a date.
Cooling off. Per the ACCC, “A franchisee may terminate a franchise agreement within 14 days of entering into the agreement (the cooling-off period)”, running from signing on a new agreement. On a transfer it ends at the earlier of two events: 14 days after becoming the new franchisee, or the day you take possession and control of the franchised business. That second limb matters enormously, because taking the keys on day 3 ends the cooling off period on day 3. The franchisor must return the money within 14 days of being notified, and may retain “reasonable expenses relating to the termination of the agreement” only where the expenses or their method of calculation are set out in the agreement. A franchisee may waive the 14 day period for a new agreement in defined circumstances involving a previous similar agreement with the same franchisor. Be very slow to waive it.
Franchisor consent to a transfer. This is the provision that decides whether you can buy an existing franchised business at all. The franchisee must ask in writing. The franchisor must not unreasonably withhold consent, and has 42 days to respond, running from the later of the date the franchisee asks and, where the franchisor asks for more information, the date it receives the last piece of it. If no written refusal is given inside the 42 days, consent is taken to be given, and the ACCC states that franchisors cannot take back their consent in that circumstance. Where the franchisor does consent in writing it may cancel within 14 days by written notice with reasons, but not unreasonably. Section 24(3) also provides that the franchisor must not give consent before the end of 14 days after the later of specified dates. The ACCC gives, as examples of reasonable refusal, a buyer failing the franchisor’s selection criteria, the current franchisee’s unresolved breaches, and outstanding financial obligations to the franchisor. Make your contract conditional on consent with a date that allows the full 42 days plus your own approval process, require the seller to lodge the request immediately after signing, and confirm the selection criteria and training requirements before you make an offer.
The register. The Franchise Disclosure Register at franchisedisclosure.gov.au is a free public register hosted by the Australian Government through the ACCC, with no account required. It holds franchise profiles and disclosure material uploaded by franchisors themselves. The Regulations require a franchisor to provide information to the register within 3 months of the initial trigger date, and to update or confirm it within 4 months of each financial year. The register states its own limits: the Commonwealth does not review or endorse the content before publication, and the register “does not negate the need for a prospective franchisee to undertake necessary due diligence”. Use it before you talk to the franchisor, because it is the one place you can compare systems side by side without a salesperson present.
Tell me what you are looking for
I will tell you when something matches. You sign a confidentiality agreement before you see anything that identifies a business.
Nothing you send goes any further. It comes to me only, into my own database in Sydney. I do not pass buyer enquiries to sellers, to other brokers or to anyone else. You see a sector, a region and a size before you see a name, and nothing that identifies a business is released until you have signed a confidentiality agreement.
If you would rather not put anything in writing yet, ring 0431 124 128. Prefer to pick a time yourself? Book a time in my diary.
Register your buying brief
Tell me the sector, the size, the region and the funding you have available. It takes one conversation, it costs nothing, and your details never reach a seller without your say so.