Castle Hill Selling Property Lawyer - VJ Tait & Associates

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.

The contract will include not only the legal terms and conditions of sale, but will also specify what items are included or excluded from the sale, and any 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 situation with us.

You also need to know your disclosure responsibilities, as failing to disclose certain things can lead you into a lot of trouble.

We will provide you with a questionnaire to complete which assists you in giving us the information needed and prompting us for further information if necessary.

Your property cannot be put on the market, or shown to any prospective purchasers without a contract. It takes about a week (usually quicker) to prepare your contract and issue it to you and your estate agent.

Exchange

Once a buyer is found and an offer made and accepted, the agent may ask you to sign the contract with your buyer with a cooling off period.  This means that the purchaser then has 5 business days to finalise their finance and obtain their inspection reports (the purchasers sometimes ask for more than 5 days) and they will pay a 025% deposit during this time, you as the vendor cannot accept any other offers, or change your mind.  The purchaser however can pull out for whatever reason before the end of the cooling off period.   If they pull out then you will receive the 0.25% deposit and the property can go back on the market.   

Alternatively if you are going to auction or you have numerous interested parties, the agent may suggest that exchange be with a 66W certificate which means that the buyer exchanges unconditionally and at that time they pay the full 10% deposit.

We can assist you if you are unsure of what to do.

The Deposit

We recommend a full 10% deposit be paid, however some purchasers do ask to pay just 5% and this is up to you, or they may need to use a deposit bond. If a cash deposit is paid, this is usually held by the estate agent pending settlement. If a bond is used, we hold this.

Settlement

Settlement (the day that the money is exchanged for the property and keys handed over) is scheduled in accordance with the contract, and is usually 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.

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.

Contact us to discuss the sale of your specific property.

Castle Hill Selling Property

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