Selling
1. Contract Preparation
Before your property can be advertised for sale, it is a legal requirement that you have a Contract prepared. Our office will obtain all documents required by law, these documents are usually a, title search of the property along with any other dealings registered on the title, plan of the land or strata (if applicable) council zoning certificate and sewer diagram. Our office prepares the Special Conditions for the contract and it is tailored for you property and your needs. The Contract will also specify what items are included or excluded from the sale, there are a lot of ways that a contract can be varied, so it is our priority to find out what you need and to reflect this in the Contract. Once this has been prepared the Contract will be sent to your selling agent and marketing of the property may begin.
2. Accepting an Offer & Deposit
The next step is carried out between you and your selling agent. Once you have accepted an offer from a purchaser our office is then advised of the sale. We will then being to liaise with the purchaser’s Conveyancer or Solicitor to arrange an ‘exchange of Contracts’.
Sometimes selling agents facilitate the ‘exchange of Contracts’ this is not uncommon and we have no issues with your selling agent doing this as long as they have your instructions to do so.
3. Exchange of Contracts
What is ‘Exchange of Contracts” – This is when 2 copies of the Contract, one signed by you the Vendor and the other signed by the Purchaser(s) are physically exchanged, swapped over, this means that each party holds the Contract signed by the other party.
Depending on the negotiations of the sale, the Contract will either be exchanged unconditionally or exchanged with a cooling off period.
- Unconditional Exchange
An unconditional exchange means that both parties are bound by the terms of the contract immediately, the full deposit is to be held by the selling agent before Contracts can be exchanged, once they are exchanged it is deemed ‘unconditional’.
- Exchange with a Cooling Off Period
A normal cooling off period gives the Purchaser 5 business days to arrange their finances and carry out any inspections that they wish to. The Purchaser will pay a holding deposit at the time contracts are exchanged; this is 0.25% of the purchase price. The balance of the deposit must be paid on the final date of the cooling off period. Once the deposit is paid and the final date of the cooling off period passes the purchaser becomes ‘legally bound’ to complete the transaction.
If the Purchaser(s) decide to ‘rescind’ (pull out) of the Contract before the expiration of the Cooling Off Period the Purchaser forfeits the 0.25% deposit paid to you, and the property is placed back on the market.
4. Settlement
Your Settlement period will be tailored to your requirements in the Contract preparation stage, however Settlement ‘usually’ occurs 6 weeks after exchange.
During the 6 weeks period we will prepare a number of things:
- If you have a Mortgage over the property, we contact the Mortgagee after exchange and advised them of the sale.
- We will arrange for you to sign the ‘Transfer’ (this document passes ownership of the property from the vendor to the purchaser)
- Closer to the settlement date, the buyer’s Conveyancer or Solicitor will send through the required Certificates and Draft Settlement figures for our office to confirm, once we have the payout figure from the Mortgagee we will advise you of the settlement figures and the all important amount of money you should expect after settlement.
- All council and water rates and levies are adjusted as at the date of settlement and if any are unpaid, these will be drawn from the sale proceeds. On the day of settlement, we attend on your behalf. Your Mortgagee will be paid out and we can bank any surplus funds directly into your bank account following settlement.
Once settlement takes place, the selling agent will be authorised to release the keys to the purchaser and the balance of the deposit to you, less their fees.
