Selling Your Home

The stages in selling your home:

• Before You Sell

  Prior to putting your property on the market, you must have a contract prepared by your Solicitor. It is an offence under New South Wales law to list a property for sale without having a contract. We are aware that this is often a time sensitive situation and endeavour to have your contract prepared and delivered to your estate agent within 24 hours of receiving your instructions.

  The Conveyancing Act in New South Wales advises that your contract must contain certain mandatory information. These obligations are known as vendor disclosure requirements and require a contract to annex the following:

  • A title search;
  • The deposited plan;
  • Restrictions on use of land;
  • Easements. Rights of Way or Covenants;
  • A Zoning Certificate from a local Council which shows, amongst other things, certain items that may affect the property such as land slip, flooding, or bushfire risk, and also comments on the zoning and planning controls for the property;
  • A drainage diagram showing the location of the sewer line;
  • If you are selling a property under strata title, you will also need to provide information on the strata lot and common property, along with any by-laws affecting the unit or apartment.

  As a vendor, the Act also places on you strict obligations to disclose certain other information to prospective purchasers. The vendor warranty requirements in the Act are quite serious and failure to disclose the required information in the contract could lead to the contract being rescinded by a purchaser or a claim for compensation being sought. We will talk to you in detail about these requirements and discuss whether the contract needs to be tailored further to your situation.

  We will ensure that the contract is fit for purpose and suits your particular needs in selling your property.

  At RMB Lawyers we take pride in ensuring that the terms of the contract are not only satisfying your legal requirements but also ensuring that your best interests and particular requirements are taken care of.

• Exchange of Contracts

  Exchange of contracts for most lawyers is often the most important and crucial part of your sale, in that the terms of the contract have now been set and a binding contract has been created.

  Exchange of contracts can typically occur in two main ways:

  1. Where the Solicitors for the seller and buyer meet to swap the contracts (this can also be done electronically in many cases ). The deposit is typically paid to the estate agent at this point and the contract is then dated and exchanged.
  2. At an auction the exchange of contracts occurs following the fall of the hammer and the acceptance of the purchaser's bid.

  Once the contract is binding, a settlement date is set.

  We will discuss with you at or prior to this point any obligations that you may have in relation to GST, Capital Gains Tax, and also help assist with the arranging of the discharge of a mortgage that you may have over your property.

  The purchaser's Solicitor will also raise what are called "Requisitions on Title" which are a long list of questions relating to the sale of your property. We will help answer these for you and ensure that your legal rights are protected.

• Completion of the Sale

  Prior to the settlement of your sale, we will have discussed and finalised with the purchaser's Solicitor any adjustments to council rates, water rates and strata levies. We will obtain a payout figure from your discharging mortgagee and will provide you with a statement setting out all figures relating to your sale.

  We will attend a settlement on your behalf where the Solicitors for the seller and buyer meet, along with respective banks to finalise your sale.

  We will then call you following settlement and make arrangements to have the proceeds of sale deposited into your account, or alternatively draw cheques as directed by you.

From start to finish during your sale we feel that communication with you is of paramount importance and we will make ourselves available to you via all forms of modern communication.