Hope Island is one of the Gold Coast’s most exclusive suburbs. Home to an enclave of exclusive housing estates, such as Sanctuary Cove and Hope Island Resort, with several world class golf courses meandering in between.
The property website Domain are currently running a series of articles on selling a property, covering aspects from presentation and market advise, to sales tactics and the conveyancing process itself.
Brisbane came alive this weekend for the annual Teneriffe Festival. The streets were lined with a festival of food, markets and entertainment.
So you’ve spent countless weekends scouring the suburbs of Brisbane, or the Gold Coast for that perfect property and you think you’ve finally found ‘the one’ and are ready to put in an offer and sign a contract of sale. It’s right about now that you need to tap the brakes every so slightly. There’s no point rushing in and signing your name, as the entire conveyancing process will be dictated by this contract, so you want to make sure you’ve got it right before signing.
So you’ve had your property on the market for a while and have now signed a contract of sale and sold your property. First of all congratulations on the sale! While getting that offer may be exciting at first, we’re sure that a bit of stress is beginning to creep into your mind as you start to consider the long list of things you now have to take care.
When you purchase a property in Queensland your solicitor is required to carry out a number of searches on the property as part of the conveyancing process in order to prepare for settlement and to ensure that the property you are purchasing is free of encumbrances and defects and is as described on the contract of sale.
The conveyancing process in Queensland varies significantly depending on whether you are buying or selling a property. The sale process is much simpler than the purchase process, which is why your conveyancing solicitor charges much less, however there are still important steps to follow and complete as part of the sale process.
If you are looking to purchase a property on the Gold Coast, or in Brisbane, the first thing you will do after finding a property you’d like to purchase is to make an offer to the seller. In Queensland this is done by way of signing a contract of sale containing your offer and providing this to the seller for their consideration. The real estate agent will in most cases act as the intermediary in this process, delivering your offer to the seller.
As part of the conveyancing process your solicitor will calculate a settlement amount, which is the amount the buyer must pay for the property at settlement, taking into account adjustments for things such as, rates, water charges and body corporate fees. Your solicitor will provide you with a settlement statement prior to settlement that details how the settlement amount has been calculated.
As a specialist property law and conveyancing law firm we deal with a lot of buyers, some who are experienced investors, whilst many are new to the property market and very unsure about the process. Our job is to make the buying process as easy as possible for you, so we thought we’d put together a few tips on making an offer on a property.
We’ve written before about the different searches a solicitor will undertake as part of the conveyancing process when you purchase a property. One of these searches that must be undertaken as part of the process is a land tax clearance search. If you are taking out a mortgage to finance your purchase your mortgagee will require this prior to settlement, but in most cases your solicitor will undertake this search even if you are not taking out a mortgage in order to avoid you taking on a land tax liability.
Our house was a beautiful double-storey Edwardian in a bayside suburb of Melbourne. My parents had been lucky enough to buy in 1989, when you could still get houses in that neighbourhood for a relative song. When we moved in, it had just one storey and needed work. An upstairs was added and the entire back of the house extended. We made it ours and lived there for 25 years.
