Selling Property

When selling property, a Contract for Sale must be prepared before a property can be placed on the market.

Inhouse Conveyancing can prepare a draft contract for the sale of your property within 48 hours of receiving your instructions and have a complete contract forwarded to the real estate agent once the council zoning certificate is received which can usually take up to 10 working days.

Contract Preparation

In order to prepare a contract, we need to obtain all the documents required by law to form part of the contract.  This includes a council zoning certificate, a copy of the title and other title documents, a copy of the plan and sewer diagram.

Acceptance of Offer

Your real estate agent should let you know when an offer is made by a prospective purchaser. Once you accept an offer, the agent will send a sales advice to all parties with details of the sale.

10% Deposit

The contract is legally binding when contracts are exchanged and a deposit is paid.  Usually a 10% is payable on exchange of contracts. However, you can agree to accept a 5% deposit, a deposit bond or bank guarantee.

Exchange

Contracts are exchanged when you and the purchaser sign separate but identical copies of the contract and the deposit is paid. Contracts are dated and your signed contract is given to the purchaser’s solicitor, and the purchaser’s signed contract is given to our office.

Cooling-off period

A Contract for Sale of Land for residential property includes a 5 business day cooling-off period commencing the day contracts are exchanged i.e. a purchaser’s cooling off rights where contracts are exchanged Monday will expire at 5.00 pm the following Monday . Only a purchaser has the right to change their mind after exchange. You, as the vendor, don’t have this right. If the purchaser decides not to proceed with the purchase, they are required to pay you 0.25% of the purchase price.

A cooling off period can be extended if agreed by both parties in writing before the expiry of the cooling off period.

The cooling off period can be waived by the purchaser’s solicitor or conveyancer signing a Section 66W certificate.

Settlement

Once contracts are exchanged, we will need to prepare for settlement.

If you have a mortgage on the property, we will need to advise the discharging mortgagee that you have sold the property.

We will arrange for you to sign the Transfer document which passes ownership of a property from a seller to the buyer.

Once an appointment for settlement is made, the purchaser’s conveyancer will forward settlement figures for us to review which contains adjustments for council and water rates and a payout figure to discharge your mortgage will be received from your lender.

Any council rates, water rates or strata levies not paid prior to settlement will be deducted from the settlement proceeds.

On the day of settlement, all parties come together, the purchaser’s conveyancers provides cheques for the sale proceeds and your lender is paid out in exchange for the Certificate of Title and a discharge of mortgage.

Any surplus funds can be deposited directly into your bank account.