Property Conveyancing in Newcastle & Lake Macquarie

Your Real Estate Agent will assist you with marketing and finding a buyer for your property. They are unable to prepare your contract of sale or assist with transferring the property into the purchasers name. This is where we assist. We will step you through preparing your contract, exchanging contracts and settlement.

You can engage our assistance at any stage during your transaction but we recommend that you touch bases with us when you first start looking for a property. We can give you a quick overview of the things you should be doing when making an offer. If you’re buying atauction, engage us prior to the big day. At auction, your contracts exchange i.e. you are legally locked in and bound by the terms of the contract, when the hammer falls. You therefore want us to review the contract before auction.

You are unable to market your property through a real estate agent, until you have a contract of sale so you should get in touch to kickstart your matter at the same time you engage your real estate agent. If you are selling privately, you can negotiate an agreement with your buyer but you will need our assistance to get things legally locked in.

Not really. The only difference is that we obtain a pre-purchase strata report as opposed to a pest and build report. You also will need to factor in strata levies in addition to Council and water rates, which will be adjusted on settlement.

One major difference between owning a house and a unit in a strata scheme (or “lot”) is that the external walls, the floor and roof do not usually belong to the lot owner. These areas are usually common property. This means that the maintenance and repair of these parts of the building are the responsibility of the owners corporation.

As it is common property, the lot owner cannot alter or renovate these areas without permission from the owners corporation. Lot owners may need permission to do things such as install services (eg. cable television, phone or internet), knock down walls or replace locks on doors or windows.

Sometimes propertiesy are advertised for sale before the land is subdivided or dwelling onthe property is constructed. This is known as buying off the plan.

You can still exchange contracts but settlement won’t take place until registration or construction has finished. You should pay careful attention to how and if the contract can be rescinded due to delays.

If you are buying a property that will be built and ready to move in to, you need to have clear expectations about what the ‘finishes and fittings’ will look like and make sure that they are expressed clearly in your contract. Clients sometimes negotiate changes to the floor plan or different finishes than that proposed by the developer, these need to be incorporated into your contract.

The process is the same but you will want to consider obtaining accounting advice when you first start thinking about buying an investment property, to ensure that the ownership of the property is structured in a way that is tax efficient for you and reflects your proposed use of the property.

You should think about speaking to a lender or broker when you’re first thinking about buying a property so that you know how much money you have available to you to fund the purchase. This is referred to as being ‘pre-approved’. The time frames from making an offer to exchange can be very quick, particularly in a competitive market, so you will want to know that you can fund the transaction before you are legally locked into a transaction.

When you buy a residential property in NSW, you have a 5-business day cooling-off period after you exchange contracts. The cooling-off period starts as soon as you exchange and ends at 5pm on the fifth business day after the day of exchange.

In a fast paced market, it is not unusual to exchange subject to cooling off. This means that as a purchaser you can undertake your pre-purchase enquiries and finalise your finance, in the confidence the vendor cannot sell the property to someone else. If you decide to withdraw from the contract, you will lose 0.25% of the purchase price.

Gazumping occurs when an agent or seller accepts an offer you make to buy a
property at an agreed price but the property is sold to someone else. This usually
happens when the vendor sells the property for a higher amount. The agent is legally obliged to pass on to the vendor any further offers received for the property up until the exchange of contracts.

In NSW, a property sale is binding on the seller and buyer when contracts are
exchanged between the two parties. Exchange occurs when the seller signs their copy of the sale contract; the buyer signs their copy, and the two parties exchange their signed contracts. It is usual at this time for the buyer to pay a deposit, usually 10% of the purchase price.

If you are gazumped, neither the agent nor the seller are obliged to compensate you for any money you may have spent on legal advice, inspection reports, finance application costs or inquiries. Your expression of interest payment must be refunded to you in full.

The best way to avoid this as a purchaser, is to make sure you are as organised as
possible in terms of financing the property, reviewing the contract and undertaking a pre-purchase building report.