From negotiation to signing the Contract Process

You have viewed the property that you want to buy, what do you do now?

You need to look at making your offer.

Before you give the Agent your offer, you should speak with your Bank or Mortgage Broker and also your Solicitor.  You need to make sure that any offer that you make, that you are able to complete that offer if it proceeded to contract.

Your offer should contain all of the conditions that you require in the contract.  If you require the offer to be subject to the sale of your existing property, you should include that in the offer.

I recommend that any offer that you make is in writing, usually on an offer form which the Agent supplies.  

By presenting a full offer in writing you could potentially put yourself ahead of a rival offer who has not done this.

The full offer allows the Seller to compare your offer to any other offers.

The Agent will then present your offer to the Seller.  Ther Seller then has a choice to do any of the following:

• Accept the offer;
• Reject the offer;
• Negotiate with a counter offer;
• Make it a multiple offer situation (discussed in another blog).

The Agent will then contact you and discuss the Seller’s instructions.

You should consider any response supplied by the Agent and any counter offer and it is then your choice to either accept, reject or make a counter offer.

If you have any questions or concerns about the negotiation you should discuss them with your Solicitor.

If you have been successful with your negotiations then an offer has been accepted.  The Agent then has to prepare a contract.  There is no legal agreement to purchase a property unless it is in writing, usually in the form of a Contract.

The Agent will prepare the Contract and present the Contract to you via email through Docusign.  You should then carefully review the Contract and the terms of the Contract.  If you have any questions or concerns in relation to the Contract then you should talk with your Solicitor and have them review the Contract.

Once you are satisfied with the Contract, you will then follow the instructions in the email from Docusign and sign the Contract.

Once you sign the Contract, the Contract is then emailed to the Seller for their signature.

Once both parties have signed the Contract, the Agent will email copies to all parties and their Solicitors.