THE CONTRACT PROCESS

Ok, you have signed the contract but what do I do next.  There are a few things that you should do straight away:

• Pay the deposit (depending on terms of contract);
• Take out insurance for the property;
• Send the contract to your Solicitor and Finance Broker/Bank;
• Organise your building and pest inspection.

After you have done the above things which you should as soon as you sign the contract the next thing to do is to sit down and take a deep breath.

This is a process that you can not do all at once and no matter how much you want things to be done as a matter of urgency, there are other parties involved and while you can organise your side of the contract and get your ducks in a row, you may then have to wait for the other parties to get their ducks in a row.

Usually the main two time frames that you have to comply with are doing the building and pest inspection and obtaining your finance.  If you do these things as early as possible then it can take a lot of the stress out of the process.  If you come across any difficulty with either of these processes then talk to your Solicitor about your options as identifying issues early and raising them with the other party usually allows both parties to work out an agreement and the contract to continue.

Once you have satisfied the terms of your contract it is then time to pack up your house and to organise a removal company.  It is probably ideal to organise your removalist as soon as possible, probably even before you go unconditional, but if you haven’t before going unconditional then it is very important to book in your removalist at this point.

You then have to prepare for settlement.  Now your Solicitor will make sure that you have all you ducks in a row in terms of banks etc but you also have a responsibility to arrange your property for settlement.  The easiest way to think about how to leave your property is, what condition would you expect the property to be in if you were to move into it.  The contract terms effectively state you need to leave the property in a similar to condition to how the buyer inspected it.  However, in the moving process you might take down pictures or shelves on the wall and discover holes in the wall that you forgot were there.  The buyer will not have seen these as they were covered up so it is advisable to get those fixed up.  It is also advisable to give you property a thorough clean and give the buyer a fresh canvas for them to move in.

After you have moved out and cleaned up it is then time for settlement.  While your Solicitor does most of the heavy lifting you need to ensure that the house is vacant by settlement time and that you have given your keys to either your real estate agent or Solicitor.

So while this can be a very stressful time and things can chop and change depending on the situation and the process the main thing to keep in mind is to be proactive and organise everything that you have to do as soon as possible and to be considerate and treat the other party how you would like to be treated.