SELLING PROPERTY

The Contract

Once you’ve made the decision to sell your property, one of the first tasks is to have the Contract for Sale of Land drawn up, which is usually done by your Real Estate Agent. However, if you are selling the home privately without the assistance of an Agent, we can prepare the contract for you.

The contract will include the legal terms and conditions of the sale, and will detail what items are included or excluded from the sale. It also specifies other special requirements you might have like a longer or shorter settlement than usual, or perhaps that the contract be conditional upon another contract for you to buy your next property. There are a lot of ways that a contract can be varied, so it’s important to discuss your specific situation in detail with your Conveyancer.

You also need to know your disclosure responsibilities, as failing to disclose certain things can lead you into a lot of trouble. As your Conveyancer, we can help you with this.

The Deposit

Once a purchaser has been found and the contract has been signed and is legally binding, then a deposit is usually paid by the purchaser and is usually held in the trust account of the selling agent.

Settlement

Settlement (the day that the money is exchanged for the property) is scheduled in accordance with the contract, and is usually 4 – 6 weeks after signing contracts. During the wait for settlement we will liaise with your bank in relation to releasing any mortgage held on the property. In this time, you should arrange disconnection of electricity and other services.

Before settlement the purchase price will be adjusted to reflect the council rates, water rates and strata fees that need to be shared between the parties. There may be other adjustments, based on the Contract for Sale.