Project Marketing Costs for Off-the-Plan Developments

Project marketing is the sales and promotion function that takes an unbuilt development to market, and on a residential apartment or land project the combined marketing and selling spend commonly runs somewhere around 3 to 5 per cent of gross realisation value (GRV). On a $60 million project that is $1.8 million to $3 million, which is more than most contingency lines and more than most professional fee budgets. It is also the cost line most often carried into an early feasibility as a single round percentage and never revisited.

Most of the spend is a commercial decision rather than a legal one, but two documents do a lot of work and repay reading closely. The agency agreement decides when commission becomes payable, what marketing expenses you carry whether or not a lot sells, and how and when you can get out. The campaign material itself becomes representations made on your behalf, which is where an image that does not match the delivered apartment turns into a purchaser’s complaint. Questions worth putting to your lawyer on both are set out near the end.

The figures, thresholds and rules below were current at the date of writing and they change. Agency legislation is amended regularly, penalty units are indexed, and the foreign investment settings move with policy. Every regulatory point below links to the primary source, and that source is where to confirm the position before you rely on it.

What does project marketing actually cover?

Project marketing covers everything between a development approval and a signed, unconditional contract, on a product that does not physically exist yet. That is the difference from ordinary agency work. There is nothing to walk through, so the campaign has to manufacture the experience of the building.

In practice the scope tends to break into six blocks:

Positioning and brand. Naming, logo, brand guidelines, tone, and the story the project sells on. Usually the first spend, often before the Development Application (DA) is even lodged.

Visualisation. Computer generated images (CGI) of the exterior, interiors, views and amenity. Sometimes film, sometimes a fly-through, increasingly interactive touchscreen apps and virtual walkthroughs.

Physical experience. The display suite, which may be a fitted-out apartment mock-up, a modular building on site, or a leased retail tenancy nearby. Plus the finishes boards, the physical scale model, and the furniture package.

Media and lead generation. Portal listings, paid search, social, retargeting, database campaigns, print where the buyer profile still reads it, signage and hoarding graphics.

Sales resource. The agency team, the on-site sales staff, the customer relationship management system, contract administration, and the follow-up through to unconditional.

Distribution channels. Referral networks, buyer’s agents, offshore channels, mortgage referral partners. These generally do not cost anything up front, and cost a great deal per sale.

The trap for a developer is that these six blocks sit in two different cost categories in a feasibility. Brand, visualisation, display suite and media are Marketing Costs, spent whether or not a lot sells. Agency commission and channel fees are Sales Costs, contingent on a sale and payable at settlement. Modelling them as one blended percentage hides the fact that roughly a third of the number is committed spend and the rest is not.

What does an off-the-plan project marketing campaign typically cost?

There is no government-published benchmark for project marketing spend, so any number here is market practice rather than a rate you can look up. Commonly quoted ranges for Australian residential off-the-plan projects sit around:

Several things move a project up or down that range. Smaller projects carry a higher percentage because brand, images and a display suite cost roughly the same whether you are selling 20 apartments or 120. Projects with a long presale period before a construction start burn media and display suite running costs for longer. Projects that need offshore buyers to hit a presale target pay channel fees rather than media costs, which shifts spend from Marketing Costs to Sales Costs. And a project relaunching after a failed campaign generally pays for the creative twice.

The only figure that matters for your deal is the one in the proposal in front of you, and the campaign budget an agency puts up is a proposal, not a market rate. A current written scope with itemised line items is the place to confirm what any of this actually costs.

How should project marketing sit in the feasibility?

Marketing costs and sales costs are separate cost categories and behave differently, so modelling them separately tends to give a truer cashflow than a single blended percentage.

Marketing costs are committed and front-loaded. Brand, images and the display suite are largely spent before the first contract is exchanged. They are sunk if the project does not proceed. They also attract Goods and Services Tax (GST), and whether that GST is recoverable depends on the GST treatment of the sales, which the Goods and Services Tax on property development guide covers in detail.

Sales costs are contingent and back-ended. Commission is generally only earned on a sale and generally only paid at settlement, which on an off-the-plan apartment project may be two to three years after the contract was signed. That gap is the single most useful thing to get right in the model. A feasibility that pays commission at exchange overstates the peak funding requirement and understates the internal rate of return (IRR). One that pays it at settlement matches what actually happens.

Both feed total development cost (TDC), and the split between them changes the shape of the cashflow rather than the total.

A worked campaign budget

The budget below is illustrative. Each line is an assumption chosen to show how the spend phases and compounds, not a quoted rate. Take a 60-apartment project with a gross realisation value (GRV) of $60,000,000 excluding Goods and Services Tax, averaging $1,000,000 per apartment.

Marketing costs budgeted at 1.2 per cent of gross realisation value (GRV), or $720,000:

Sales costs at 2.5 per cent commission on settlement: $1,500,000. Combined selling and marketing spend is $2,220,000, or 3.7 per cent of gross realisation value (GRV).

Now set that against the rest of the project. If all other development costs come to $48,000,000, total development cost (TDC) is $50,220,000. Profit before funding is $60,000,000 less $50,220,000, or $9,780,000, which is a development margin on cost of 19.5 per cent.

Scenario two: the campaign runs 12 months longer than planned. Changed inputs only: 12 further months of display suite running costs at $60,000, additional paid media of $70,000, and relaunch creative of $30,000. Marketing costs rise to $880,000, or 1.47 per cent of gross realisation value (GRV). Total development cost (TDC) becomes $50,380,000, profit falls to $9,620,000, and margin on cost falls to 19.1 per cent.

A 0.4 percentage point margin movement from marketing alone looks survivable. It rarely arrives alone. The same 12 months generally brings a further year of land holding costs and a further year of interest on the land facility, and those are usually the larger numbers. The marketing overrun is the visible symptom of a slow campaign rather than the main cost of one.

How do project marketing agencies charge?

Fee structures vary, and the three that turn up most often behave very differently on your cashflow.

Commission only. The agency is paid a percentage of each sale, generally on settlement, and either absorbs the campaign cost or bills it separately. Attractive because nothing is payable until a lot settles, though a commission-only structure usually comes with a higher rate and a longer exclusivity period.

Retainer plus commission. A monthly fee covering the sales team and campaign management, plus a reduced commission per sale. This converts part of a contingent cost into a fixed one, which is worth pricing carefully if the presale period is uncertain.

Cost recovery with a marketing budget. The agency manages a defined marketing budget, drawn down against invoices as spent, on top of commission. This is where the detail matters: whether the budget is a cap or an estimate, who approves an overrun, and whether unspent budget is refundable.

Three commercial points are worth settling in writing before the campaign starts, because each is a common source of dispute:

• When commission is earned versus when it is paid. These are different events. An agreement can make commission “earned” on exchange while payable on settlement, which matters if the purchaser later rescinds or the contract falls over.
• What happens to marketing spend if the project does not proceed. Committed spend is generally still owed. The question is what “committed” means and who can commit it.
• What happens on termination or expiry. A tail or holdover provision may entitle the agency to commission on a buyer introduced during the term who contracts afterwards. The length of that tail, and how “introduced” is defined, is worth reading closely.

Whether the campaign runs through an external project marketing agency or an in-house sales team is a structural decision with its own cost profile, and the honest comparison is not commission rate against salary. It is commission rate against salary plus the fixed overhead through a slow market, plus the database and channel access you would otherwise be renting.

What does a display suite cost, and is one always needed?

A display suite is usually the single largest line in a project marketing budget, and commonly quoted ranges run from roughly $150,000 for a modest modular suite on site to well beyond $700,000 for a fully finished apartment mock-up with a furniture package in a leased tenancy. Three cost drivers explain most of that spread.

Location and tenure. A suite on your own site avoids rent but usually needs a planning approval for the temporary use, a power and water connection, and a decommissioning cost when construction takes the area back. A leased retail tenancy avoids the approval question and the site clash, and adds rent, outgoings and make-good for the term of the campaign.

What is actually built. A sales gallery with a scale model, finishes boards and a touchscreen is a different product from a full one-bedroom and two-bedroom mock-up with the actual kitchen, bathroom and joinery specification. The mock-up is far more persuasive on a project selling at the top of its market, and it costs several times as much.

Duration. Rent, outgoings, cleaning, utilities, insurance and staffing all run monthly. A suite budgeted for 12 months and open for 30 has an overrun that is invisible in the fitout number and very visible in the cashflow.

Whether a display suite is needed at all is a product question. Land subdivision projects and smaller townhouse projects frequently sell from a site office, a hoarding and a well-built website. Larger apartment projects at higher price points tend to find it harder to sell a $1.5 million apartment from a portal listing. The useful question is not whether to have one but what the marginal sale rate improvement needs to be to justify the spend, and your project marketing agency should be able to show you what the suite did on comparable projects they have run.

If the suite is going on your own site, the temporary use approval is a town planning question rather than a marketing one, and the timing of it can sit on the critical path for a launch. Your town planner is the person who can tell you whether it is exempt, complying or a full application in your council area.

What do the brand, images and digital assets cost?

Visualisation is where marketing budgets are most often under-provisioned, because the cost scales with the number of unique apartment types and views rather than with the number of apartments.

Commonly quoted market ranges sit around $3,000 to $10,000 for a still computer generated image (CGI) depending on complexity and revision rounds, with a full film or animated fly-through commonly quoted in the tens of thousands. A typical apartment project may need exterior hero images, several interior images per apartment type, amenity images, and a view image per orientation, which is why a project with four apartment types across three orientations can find itself commissioning 25 to 40 images.

Two practical points that affect the number:

• Revisions are usually the cost, not the render. A design still moving through documentation while images are in production tends to double the image budget. Locking the finishes schedule before commissioning is the lever.
• The images become contract documents in practice. Whatever the disclaimer says, a purchaser who signs after standing in front of an image will point at it if the delivered apartment does not match. That is a legal exposure as much as a marketing one, and it is covered in the next section.

Interactive apps, apartment selectors and virtual tours are increasingly standard on larger projects and are generally licensed monthly, which again means duration risk rather than capital cost.

When does the project marketing money actually leave the account?

Broadly in four waves, and they do not line up with the sales.

Wave one, pre-launch. Brand, images, website, display suite fitout and the first media burst. This is the bulk of the committed marketing spend and it lands before a single contract exists. On the worked example above, roughly $530,000 of the $720,000 is spent before launch.

Wave two, the launch campaign. Concentrated media over the first six to twelve weeks. High spend rate, and generally the period that produces the highest sales rate.

Wave three, the sustain period. Media, suite running costs and staffing at a lower monthly rate, for as long as it takes to reach the presale threshold and then to clear the remaining stock. Open-ended by nature, which is why this is the wave that blows budgets.

Wave four, settlement. Commission and channel fees, paid as apartments settle after completion. On a project with a 24-month build, this is two to three years after the exchange that triggered it.

The consequence for the model is that marketing costs sit almost entirely inside the funding period and add to peak debt, while commission sits at the far end and does not. If a feasibility phases the whole selling and marketing budget as a single percentage applied at settlement, it will understate peak funding exposure by close to the whole marketing number plus the interest on it.

What do the agency agreement rules require in each state?

The agency agreement is the document that decides whether the agent can be paid at all, and every state and territory regulates it. The requirements differ, and the pattern that repeats is that a defective agreement can strip the agent of an entitlement to commission and expenses.

New South Wales. Under section 55 of the Property and Stock Agents Act 2002 (NSW), a licensee is not entitled to commission or expenses unless the services were performed under a written agency agreement signed by the parties, and a copy signed by the licensee was served on the client within 48 hours. Section 55A allows a court or tribunal to grant relief from that disentitlement in some circumstances. NSW Fair Trading publishes guidance on agency agreements for property professionals.

Victoria. Under section 49A of the Estate Agents Act 1980 (Vic), before obtaining a signature to an engagement or appointment the agent must inform the client that commission and outgoings are negotiable, and where a fee is calculated on a percentage basis it must be stated both as a percentage and as the dollar amount payable. Section 50 then provides that an agent is not entitled to recover or retain commission or outgoings unless section 49A has been complied with, so the disclosure obligation and the loss of entitlement sit in two different sections. Consumer Affairs Victoria sets out the position on authorities, rebates and commission.

Queensland. A residential appointment is made on the approved Form 6, and the Queensland Government states that from 1 May 2024 an agent and client must complete that form for the appointment to be valid. Its guidance on appointing a property agent also states that where a term of more than 60 days is agreed, the appointment must remain in effect for at least 60 days, after which either party can end it on a minimum of 30 days written notice. That matters on a long presale campaign, because a 60-day floor with a 30-day exit is a very different commitment from a 12-month exclusive.

Western Australia, South Australia, Tasmania, the Australian Capital Territory and the Northern Territory. Each has its own licensing statute with a written-appointment requirement and its own conduct rules, and the practical position is broadly similar: no written appointment, no entitlement to commission or expenses. The detail of form, service period and prescribed disclosures differs enough that a template drawn for a New South Wales project should not be assumed to work in Perth or Adelaide. Your lawyer confirming the local requirement is a small cost against a commission dispute.

The developer-side reading of all of this is straightforward. These provisions exist to protect the client, and the client is you. An agency agreement that does not comply is a problem for the agent, not usually for you, but a dispute about it still costs you time on a live campaign. The more useful question is whether the agreement you are signing contains what you want it to contain, not merely what the statute requires.

What can a project marketing campaign legally claim?

Everything published on your behalf is subject to the Australian Consumer Law in Schedule 2 of the Competition and Consumer Act 2010 (Cth), which prohibits misleading or deceptive conduct and includes a specific provision on false or misleading representations concerning the sale of land. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) publishes guidance on real estate and on false or misleading claims. As vendor, you are generally the one making the representation even where an agency wrote the words.

Three areas tend to carry the most exposure on an off-the-plan campaign.

Images and the delivered product. A computer generated image (CGI) showing a view, a finish or an amenity that the completed building does not deliver is the most common complaint. Disclaimers help but do not cure a representation that is misleading taken as a whole. The practical control is a documented sign-off process linking every published image back to the current drawing set and finishes schedule.

Amenity, timing and completion claims. Claims about a future train station, a school catchment, a retail tenant or a completion date are representations about the future. Where they turn out to be wrong, the question generally becomes whether there were reasonable grounds for making them at the time.

Price representations. Underquoting rules apply to residential property and bite on advertised price guides.

• In New South Wales, section 73 of the Property and Stock Agents Act 2002 (NSW) makes it an offence to publish an advertisement indicating a selling price less than the agent’s estimated selling price, and section 73A extends this to representations. The Property and Stock Agents Amendment (Underquoting and Other Agent Conduct) Act 2026 (NSW) raised the maximum court-imposed penalty to $110,000 or three times the agent’s commission, whichever is higher, with those changes commencing on 29 June 2026. NSW Fair Trading’s underquoting guidance also states that an agent can lose the commission and fees on an underquoted property.
• In Victoria, section 47A of the Estate Agents Act 1980 (Vic) requires an engagement for residential property to contain an estimated selling price, expressed either as a single figure or as a range where the upper limit does not exceed the lower by more than 10 per cent. Section 47AF requires a statement of information to be displayed at any public inspection and included with internet advertising. Consumer Affairs Victoria publishes underquoting guidance for agents.

For a project marketing campaign this matters most where a launch uses a “from” price on a single cheapest apartment to anchor the whole project. Whether that works legally in a given state is a question for your lawyer, and it is worth asking before the price list goes to print rather than after.

How does off-the-plan disclosure constrain the campaign?

The disclosure regime decides what has to be locked before you can contract, and what happens when the design moves afterwards. That directly limits how early you can launch.

New South Wales. Section 66ZM of the Conveyancing Act 1919 (NSW) requires a vendor to attach a disclosure statement in the approved form to an off-the-plan contract before the purchaser signs, together with prescribed documents including the draft plan. Section 66ZN requires the vendor to serve a notice of changes where the disclosure statement was or becomes inaccurate in a material particular, and the NSW Registrar General’s off-the-plan page sets out the framework including the extended cooling-off period for off-the-plan contracts. A material particular includes changes to the draft plan, draft by-laws, easements or covenants, and changes to the schedule of finishes that will or are likely to adversely affect the use or enjoyment of the lot. That last one connects the design process directly to the marketing collateral: a value engineering decision on finishes made during construction can become a notifiable change to every purchaser who bought off a finishes board.

Deposits also matter here. The NSW framework requires deposit and instalment money under an off-the-plan contract to be held as trust or controlled money by a stakeholder for the contract period, which is why off-the-plan presale deposits are generally not available to you as working capital. Purchasers may use a deposit bond or bank guarantee in place of cash where the contract allows it, which changes nothing for you commercially but is worth understanding before you rely on deposits in a cashflow.

Victoria. Section 10 of the Sale of Land Act 1962 (Vic) provides that where an amendment to a plan of subdivision after an off-the-plan contract restricts or limits the use of the lot, the purchaser may avoid the sale at any time before the plan is registered, unless the amendment results from a recommendation of a public authority or government department. The sunset clause provisions in sections 10A to 10F sit alongside this and govern what a vendor can do if the plan is not registered by the sunset date.

Queensland. The Queensland Government states that before entering into a contract for a proposed lot, a seller must give the buyer a signed disclosure statement and a disclosure plan prepared by a registered cadastral surveyor, and that the disclosure statement must be substantially complete. Its guidance on subdividing and selling land covers the position, and community titles lots carry additional disclosure under the body corporate legislation.

The scheduling point that runs across all three is that a marketing launch is gated by document readiness, not by creative readiness. Images and a display suite can be finished months before a compliant contract and disclosure package exists. Launching before the documents are ready either delays exchange or produces contracts on documents that change, which is where the rescission risk lives. Sequencing the legal pack alongside the creative is a programming discipline as much as a legal one.

Can you market an off-the-plan project to overseas buyers?

Yes, and for developments of 50 or more dwellings the usual route is a New or near-new dwelling exemption certificate, which lets foreign buyers purchase without each applying for their own approval. The ATO’s page on exemption certificates for property developers sets out the conditions, and the Foreign Investment Review Board (FIRB) publishes guidance for developers.

The ATO states that a developer can apply where the development has 50 or more dwellings, has development approval from the relevant authority, and holds any required foreign investment approval for the land. It further states that all applicants must:

• market the dwellings for sale in Australia
• sell no more than 50 per cent of the total number of dwellings in the development to foreign persons under the exemption certificate
• sell no more than $3 million worth of dwellings in the development to a single foreign person under the exemption certificate
• provide a copy of the exemption certificate to each foreign purchaser
• report every six months until all dwellings are sold, including purchaser details and sale values
• notify the ATO within 30 days if the number of dwellings falls below 50
• pay a fee for each dwelling sold under the certificate

The ATO also states that a residential development for this purpose means one or more multi-storey buildings containing at least 50 self-contained dwellings, other than townhouses, under one development approval. A townhouse or land subdivision project therefore generally sits outside the certificate route, which means foreign buyers on those projects apply individually and the campaign has to be built around a slower, less certain conversion.

Three consequences for a campaign budget. The requirement to market in Australia means an offshore-only launch is not an option under the certificate. The 50 per cent cap means an offshore channel cannot be the whole presale strategy. And the per-dwelling fee is a real cost per foreign sale that belongs in the sales cost line rather than being absorbed silently. The ATO also notes that developers who do not comply may face civil and criminal penalties and revocation of the certificate, so the reporting obligation is an administrative burden with teeth rather than a formality.

What happens to the deposits a campaign generates?

Presale deposits generally sit in trust and are not available to fund the project. That is the single most misunderstood point about off-the-plan presales, and it changes what presales are worth to you.

What presales actually deliver is not cash. It is evidence of demand and, more importantly, it is the input a financier uses to size a facility. Qualifying presale requirements are set by the financier and vary by lender type, project and market conditions, and a current term sheet is the only reliable place to see what yours are. What is generally consistent is that not every contract counts: financiers tend to apply tests around deposit size, purchaser type, related-party contracts, foreign buyer concentration and whether the contract is unconditional.

That connects a marketing decision to a funding outcome. A campaign that sells quickly to a concentrated buyer group at a discount may hit a headline presale number without hitting a qualifying one. The relationship between presale cover, facility sizing and the loan to cost ratio (LTC) is worth understanding before the price list is set, because the discount taken to accelerate presales shows up permanently in the gross realisation value (GRV) while the funding benefit is temporary.

How does project marketing work in New Zealand?

The structure is similar and the agency rules sit in the Real Estate Agents Act 2008. The Real Estate Authority (REA) states that a licensee must have a written agency agreement in place before doing any work and before receiving commission or expenses, that the agreement must be signed by or on behalf of the vendor and the agent, and that a copy must be given to the vendor within 48 hours of signing. Its guidance on agency agreements also states that where a sole agency agreement for residential property runs for a term longer than 90 days, either party may cancel it any time after 90 days.

Section 127 of the Real Estate Agents Act 2008 requires the approved guide to be provided to the client before an agency agreement for residential property is signed, and agency agreements must disclose rebates, discounts and commissions.

Marketing claims in New Zealand are subject to the Fair Trading Act 1986 rather than the Australian Consumer Law, and the Real Estate Authority (REA) publishes guidance on other laws and legislation that licensees work under. Disclosure on unit title developments carries its own regime, and a New Zealand campaign is also gated by the consenting position.

The cost shape tends to be the same as Australia. The differences worth pricing are the smaller media market, a generally shorter presale horizon on smaller projects, and a Goods and Services Tax rate of 15 per cent rather than 10 per cent, which changes the gross figures a campaign quotes.

Where do project marketing budgets go wrong?

Six failure patterns turn up repeatedly, and none of them are creative failures.

Budgeted as a single percentage and never itemised. A 3 per cent line in a feasibility is an assumption, not a budget. It cannot be tracked, so an overrun is only visible after it has happened.

Duration risk ignored. Almost every marketing cost with a monthly profile, meaning suite rent, staffing, media and software licences, is priced against an assumed campaign length. A campaign that runs 50 per cent longer does not cost 50 per cent more, because the fixed creative is already spent, but the running costs do move proportionally and they arrive alongside additional holding costs and interest.

Commission phased at exchange. A modelling error rather than a cost error, and it usually flatters peak funding and distorts the internal rate of return (IRR).

Channel fees discovered late. A project that needs an offshore or referral channel to clear the last of the stock can find the effective selling cost on those lots is double the base commission. If that possibility is real, it belongs in the sensitivity range from the outset rather than as a surprise at 70 per cent sold.

Relaunch cost unprovided. A project that pauses and relaunches generally pays again for creative, media and momentum. Whether to carry a provision for it is a judgement about how confident you are in the price list.

Marketing and design running out of sequence. Images commissioned before the finishes schedule is locked, or a display suite built to a specification that later changes, produces both a rework cost and a disclosure problem. The sequencing question is the cheapest one to fix and the most often skipped.

What to ask your lawyer

• Does this agency agreement comply with the licensing statute in the state where the project sits, and what happens to the agent’s entitlement if it does not?
• When is commission earned under this agreement, and when is it payable? What happens if a contract is rescinded after exchange but before settlement?
• What marketing expenses am I liable for if the project does not proceed, and what does the agreement treat as committed?
• Is there a tail or holdover provision? How long does it run, how is an introduced buyer defined, and how would I prove or disprove an introduction?
• What are my exclusivity obligations, and can I run a second channel or an in-house team alongside this agency?
• What sign-off process do you want over marketing material before it is published, given the representations are being made on my behalf?
• Which elements of the marketing material could become representations that survive into the contract, and how should the contract deal with them?
• What in the disclosure statement or vendor statement is likely to change during construction, and what notice or rescission rights does that trigger in this state?
• If we value engineer a finish after exchange, what is the process, and at what point does it become a material change?
• How should the price list and any “from” pricing be presented to stay within the underquoting rules in this state?
• If we intend to sell to foreign buyers, what does the exemption certificate require of the campaign and of our record keeping?

What to ask your project marketing agency

• What is the itemised campaign budget, which lines are capped, and who can authorise an overrun?
• What campaign duration is this budget priced on, and what does each additional month cost?
• On comparable projects you have run, what was the actual sales rate by month against the forecast?
• How is commission split with third-party channels, and at what point in the campaign do those channels get engaged?
• What proportion of sales on comparable projects came from your own database rather than paid media, and what does that imply for the media budget here?
• What does the display suite need to achieve in additional sales rate to pay for itself on this project, and what evidence do you have from comparable projects?
• Which images and assets are reusable if the design changes, and which have to be recommissioned?
• What is your sign-off process for published material, and who checks it against the current drawing set?
• What does your reporting look like, at what frequency, and does it show cost per enquiry and cost per sale?

What to ask your accountant

• How is marketing and selling expenditure treated for tax on this project, and does the treatment differ between pre-launch creative, ongoing media and commission?
• When can Goods and Services Tax input tax credits on campaign spend be claimed, and does the GST treatment we have chosen for the sales change that?
• How should the display suite fitout be treated, given it is a capital item with a limited life and a decommissioning cost?
• If the project does not proceed, what is the treatment of the marketing spend already incurred?

The short version

Project marketing is a committed, front-loaded cost sitting inside the funding period, followed by a contingent, back-ended commission sitting outside it. Modelling those two as one blended percentage is the most common error, and it distorts peak funding exposure rather than the profit line. The legal exposure sits in two places: the agency agreement, which decides what you owe and when, and the campaign material, which becomes representations made on your behalf to purchasers who will hold you to them. Both are worth an hour of a property lawyer’s time before the campaign starts rather than after it.