Buying a home is one of the most stressful and expensive things you will ever do. It’s vital that you seek legal advice from someone experienced in property law and who knows the area.
Before You Start
The best start to your purchase of a property is to start your finance application and secure a pre-approval in writing, however if you find the perfect property before your finance is sorted (which often happens) dont panic, call us and we will work with you and your broker/banker to secure your dream property as smoothly as possible.
If you are not sure who to speak to about loan approval, speak to us we can recommend a couple of different options, or look at our links on this website.
Pre-purchase Inspections
Once you have found a property you like, we strongly recommend you have pre-purchase inspections carried out, these are usually building and pest reports for a house and a strata report for a unit or townhouse. These are written reports about the condition of the property and helps you find out any potentially costly problems.
If you’re not sure who to trust to do this inspection, talk to us, we have a panel of trusted inspectors all over sydney, central coast, south coast and blue mountains, or look on our links page for our recommendations.
Making an Offer
When you find the dream property, ask the estate agent for the contract, (they will usually email it to you), email it onto us so that we can peruse it and advise you in relation to the contract and the property so that you dont get any surprises about easments or restrictions that will affect you. If all in order, you can start negotiating with the agent to purchase the property. Whilst we dont negotiate for you, we can assist you with how to word your offer and to hopefully secure your property.
Signing the Contract
If your offer is accepted generally you will be asked to sign the contract and pay a 0.25% deposit to the agent and they will exchange contracts with the Vendor with a 5 day cooling off period. During this cooling off period is when we assist in finalising unconditional loan approval and your pre-purchase inspection reports. If you decide not to proceed for whatever reason in this 5 day period, you as the purchaser can rescind but you do loose the 0.25% deposit. If you proceed, you have to pay the balance of the 10% deposit being 9.75% at the end of the 5 day cooling off period. The Vendor cannot pull out at this stage.
Alternatively, if you are purchasing prior to auction or if there are other buyers that are in the mix, the agent may want exchange with a 66w certificate. This will mean that when you exchange there is no cooling off period and you are exchanging unconditionally. Accordingly, we need to speak to you about where your finances are up to and about the inspection reports. Vanessa or Kirsty will sign the 66w certificate for you to use. If you exchange this way then you also have to pay a 10% deposit at the time of exchange.
The 10% can be paid via a personal cheque, bank cheque, deposit bond or by EFT.
Settlement
After the contract has become binding, we have a number of tasks to perform including:
- Arranging payment of stamp duty
- Liaising with the lender in regard to the mortgage
- Checking with various government authorities to see if they have a vested interest in the property
- Checking to see if there are any outstanding debts to local council
- Calculating adjustments for council, water and strata rates
- Making final checks on the title
On settlement day we will attend a meeting that will include the seller’s conveyancer as well as any lenders involved and the funds will be handed over in exchange for the title and the keys.
Contact us to discuss the specific property you are considering buying.