You’ll hear people say ‘selling property is the most stressful thing you can do’ but it doesn’t have to be! Our goal is to make the overall legalities a smooth and harmonious experience so that you can focus on the more important parts of the sale.
Before the property goes on the market:
The very first step in the sale process is to contact us to have a draft contract drawn up for the sale of your property. It is a legal requirement that before the property is advertised for sale that a draft contract be available to view by potential buyers. The draft contract will typically note standard items in the contract such as: settlement timeframes, inclusions/exclusions to the sale as well as standard documents such as title searches, diagrams and a zoning certificate from Council.
We can provide the draft contract to you and your real estate agent usually within five business days (sometimes earlier) depending on the circumstances of your sale.
Once a buyer has been found:
Our next involvement is when a buyer has been found for your property. We finalise the contract by updating it with the buyers details, sale price and any other negotiated items so it is ready to sign and ‘exchange’. The exchange process is when the deal becomes binding. You will sign one copy of the contract and the purchaser will sign an identical counter-part. The deposit is paid and the contracts are then ‘exchanged’ and dated. There are two ways which contracts exchange:
- With a Cooling-Off Period. Every contract for residential property in New South Wales comes with a five business day cooling-off period for the benefit of the purchaser (unless the property is sold at auction). This scenario locks you in to selling the property to the purchaser however the purchaser can pull out and rescind contracts during the cooling-off period. If they decide to do this then they will forfeit 0.25% of the purchase price to you.
- With no Cooling-Off Period. As the vendor of the property you can insist on the purchaser waiving the cooling-off period and providing what’s called a Section 66W Certificate. This Certificate is signed by the purchaser’s conveyancer and when it is provided there is no cooling-off period and the purchaser is bound to settle the contract from day one. This scenario is common where you might have a number of parties interested in your property who are all offering around the same price with similar conditions. You will be guided by your real estate agent as to which option will work best for you depending on the circumstances of your sale.
After Unconditional Exchange of Contracts or After Cooling-Off Period Expires:
Once contracts have exchanged and the cooling-off period has expired, we are then involved in ensuring that your mortgagee (if there is one) is on track to settle the discharge of mortgage. Typically you’ll be required to complete what’s known as a Discharge of Mortgage form. This document engages the mortgagee to deal with us and co-ordinate the payout of any loans which may still be outstanding over the property.
During the lead up to settlement we will provide you with a break-down of the settlement adjustments including any loan payout amounts provided by the bank. You then have several options on how to deal with the sale proceeds and we will discuss these with you at that time.
Settlement:
We look after all the formalities on the day and will attend a physical settlement where representatives for all parties involved in the sale will be present. We make sure that the correct amounts are provided by the purchaser and that the title deeds that are to be provided to the purchaser are also correct.
There is nothing you will need to do on the day. You will simply need to provide all sets of keys to your real estate agent so they can hand them over to the purchaser immediately after settlement.