Buying

Buying a home is one of the biggest decisions you ever made. And a property is also one of the most valuable things you ever buy in your life. The process might be most stressful. It’s vital that you seek legal advice from someone experienced in conveyance 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. Sometimes it happens that you find the perfect property, but your finance is not sorted out yet. Contact us and we will work with you and your broker/banker to secure your dream property as smoothly as possible.

Contract Review

You may obtain a copy of contract of sale from the agent after the property inspection. It is strongly recommended that you have your conveyancer to review the contract and request contract amendments with the vendor before you sign a contract.

Pre-purchase Inspections

Pre-purchase inspections is recommended to 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.

Signing the Contract

If your offer is accepted, you will be asked to sign the contract. The contract can be exchanged with a cooling off period (usually 5 business days) or unconditionally. When the contract is exchanged with a cooling off period, a deposit equivalent to 0.25% of purchase price is required to be paid to the agent’s trust account on exchange. During this cooling off period, a conveyancer will assist in finalizing unconditional loan approval and arrange your pre-purchase inspection reports. If you decide not to proceed for whatever reason in your cooling off period, you as the purchaser can rescind but you do loose the 0.25% deposit. If you proceed, you must pay the balance of the 10% deposit being 9.75% of purchase price at the end of cooling off period.  The Vendor cannot pull out at this stage.

Alternatively, if you are purchasing at auction or exchange contract with a 66W certificate (prepared by your conveyancer for you to waive your rights of a cooling off period), you are exchanging unconditionally. A deposit equivalent to 10% of purchase price is required to be paid at the time of exchange.

Settlement

After the contract has become binding, your conveyancer will have tasks to perform including:

• Arranging payment of stamp duty
• Liaising with the lender regarding 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

NSW is now entering an era of E-conveyancing. The settlement is undertaken electronically via PEXA. All parties are working in a same workspace in PEXA and complete a settlement.

Contact us to discuss the specific property you are considering buying.