Buying a house takes 21 days in Oz

Shoobs86

Just spoke to my aunt who lives in Oz. She said generally the rule is 21 days from sale agreed to keys.

A house I am buying went sale agreed 4 weeks ago tomorrow, and I haven't heard a peep from anyone. Still waiting on contract queries to be cleared up, haven't got a sale closure date, no idea when I will get keys. I'm living with family while i wait but it's getting tense now, and it's getting frustrating.

How long did it take for you?

super_furry

Three months. Had to get through probate though.

Shoobs86

yeah people have told me around 3 months. Maybe through probate it takes longer, but what in the name of god are they doing? the seller is mad to sell, I'm mad to buy, the searches have all been done and I'm just waiting for the solicitors to get around to my case on their desk. It's very annoying.

sbsquarepants

Bought recently, sale agreed mid June. We were ready to go, not waiting on our own place to sell or anything, people we were buying off were in a hurry to get out - moved in on 1st September!

Shoobs86

what! oh god i'm getting nervous now. I'm living with my granny, with all my stuff in one room. i might go mad if i have to wait another 8 weeks. I just emailed the solicitor and said I want an update. He hasn't spoken to me in weeks, had his secretary email me to say the contracts were in but she couldn't answer anything that I asked her.

jester77

I had to pay a €50 deposit, then i had 2 weeks to secure loan which my finance guy sorted out, and then signed the contracts. Very painless, was a new build so was another 9 months before I could move in.

Thestones

Shoobs86 wrote: »

what! oh god i'm getting nervous now. I'm living with my granny, with all my stuff in one room. i might go mad if i have to wait another 8 weeks. I just emailed the solicitor and said I want an update. He hasn't spoken to me in weeks, had his secretary email me to say the contracts were in but she couldn't answer anything that I asked her.

Honestly 2-3 months is the norm. We sold our house in about 6 weeks from sale agreed which was quite fast but took 4 months when we bought. Has your solicitor any queries with contract? If you haven't even signed contracts yet then I'd guess even everything going smoothly it will be at least another month but only your solicitor can advise you on this. You need to hassle them, explain you need things moving, your in temporary accommodation etc.

Shoobs86

Thestones wrote: »

Honestly 2-3 months is the norm. We sold our house in about 6 weeks from sale agreed which was quite fast but took 4 months when we bought. Has your solicitor any queries with contract? If you haven't even signed contracts yet then I'd guess even everything going smoothly it will be at least another month but only your solicitor can advise you on this. You need to hassle them, explain you need things moving, your in temporary accommodation etc.

Might be naive, but I can't help wondering what could possibly take that long? I presume I am just a folder on the solicitors desk - as is the seller - and they will just get to us whenever they do. I am kind of hassling my own solicitor, but I don't mind upsetting them if it speeds things up! It's not like he's working for free from the goodness of his heart!

Thestones

Shoobs86 wrote: »

Might be naive, but I can't help wondering what could possibly take that long? I presume I am just a folder on the solicitors desk - as is the seller - and they will just get to us whenever they do. I am kind of hassling my own solicitor, but I don't mind upsetting them if it speeds things up! It's not like he's working for free from the goodness of his heart!

If they have sent queries off to sellers solicitor and not heard back that could be the reason for no update, the solicitors need to work together to get it moving, if one is slow it affects the whole process.

JoeyJJ

5 weeks however used house sale both parties motivated and it was 2011 so **** all conveyancing for the solicitors at the time.

th283

8 weeks today since I went sale agreed and paid a 5 grand deposit. No paperwork yet, so the keys are probably a long way off, it’s so frustrating as I didn’t think it would take so long

Wesser

Sale agreed end of june.
Got the keys end of November
Tardy tardy solicitors who didn't care..absolutely no other issues whatsoever .
Madness.

ted1

About three weeks here. Private had gone through and all the ducks were in a line.
Solicitor was a family member

Cookie_Monster

Shoobs86 wrote: »

Just spoke to my aunt who lives in Oz. She said generally the rule is 21 days from sale agreed to keys.

Well that's what happens in a market that functions normally*...

Took 8 days when we sold our last house here in NZ. For sale for 11 days, sold, paid within 5 days and the weekend to clear out before handover Monday. Couldn't have been easier, just pissed we had to pay the agent so much for **** all work in the end

* - to be fair the housing market in Aus is massively overheated, but I refer to the actual back end transactions required.

jlm29

Wesser wrote: »

Sale agreed end of june.
Got the keys end of November
Tardy tardy solicitors who didn't care..absolutely no other issues whatsoever .
Madness.

This. I’ve been referring to him as my “soon to be former solicitor”. I don’t generally have much requirement for a solicitor, but it’s a bit disappointing to hear they’re all the same!

dar100

All communication from both solicitors is done through post, I **** you not

scouserstation

They dont make it easy to sell property in this country, after you go sale agreed there are several processes that you have to go through;

Solicitor has to request deeds for the property (this can take several weeks).
Mapping has to be done for property as a land registry requirement (this can take several days depending on surveyor who is contracted to do the job).
County council or management co. have to be consulted in relation to upkeep of area around property ( if this is council then this can be another delay).
NPPR has to be settled or exempted depending on dwelling (the council can take their time with these applications also).
Property tax and management fees have to be settled on what is owed.
Valuations have to be done on property.
Property surveys may also have to be completeed before sale.

Most of this has to be done before contracts are issued, and people wonder why the selling process can take so long, I would say 8-10 weeks can be an optimistic expectation.

What Username Guidelines

7 months for us. Sale agreed, 5k deposit, heard nothing for months. Was still on Daft and MyHome despite emails and calls to EA. Then realised what they were at when they called and asked for another €20k or they'll put it back on market for €30k more. We had made the mistake of stopping looking at other properties. Told them where to go, not calling a bluff or anything, just didnt think it was worth €20k more. They came back a couple of days after and said ok fine, we wont go back to market, so it was obvious they were chancers. Sale agreed wass early 2014 and then things started to tick up, probably why they thought they'd delay and get more cash.

Friends of ours are buying now and their solicitor boasted he could get it all done in 6 weeks if there were no complications

Wesser

jlm29 wrote: »

Wesser wrote: »

Sale agreed end of june.
Got the keys end of November
Tardy tardy solicitors who didn't care..absolutely no other issues whatsoever .
Madness.

This. I’ve been referring to him as my “soon to be former solicitor”. I don’t generally have much requirement for a solicitor, but it’s a bit disappointing to hear they’re all the same!

Obviously ...it was the vendors solicitor who was tardy. Not mine. If mine was tardy I would have found a new one .

Sesame

dar100 wrote: »

All communication from both solicitors is done through post, I **** you not

And all letters that need to be sent might make the last post on a Friday.

Never earlier in the week where you might get it the next day. I think there's some cahoots going on to justify large fees. Next time I buy I am going to ask them do they use email.

I used to email my last one but he would reply about a week later by letter!

minikin

Time for a bit of legislation: something along the lines of the Scottish system.

fg1406

9 months from going sale agreed and paying a €5000 booking deposit to getting keys. Vendors solicitor took 4 months to even acknowledge my solicitors letters. He refused to take phone calls and just ignored correspondence. Took 6 months for him to issue contracts. Vendors then messed us around too by looking to close before Christmas and then pushing it out every week until the end of January. There was an issue too where they owed tax on the house and interest and penalties had accrued to the value of €10k and they were fighting with local authority over it. In the meantime I was refused life cover for having had a burst ovarian cyst and a history of depression. Overall, a horrendous experience I never ever want to experience again.

godtabh

Due to it being a ward of court sale 7 months

Mark Hamill

scouserstation wrote: »

They dont make it easy to sell property in this country, after you go sale agreed there are several processes that you have to go through;

Solicitor has to request deeds for the property (this can take several weeks).
Mapping has to be done for property as a land registry requirement (this can take several days depending on surveyor who is contracted to do the job).
County council or management co. have to be consulted in relation to upkeep of area around property ( if this is council then this can be another delay).
NPPR has to be settled or exempted depending on dwelling (the council can take their time with these applications also).
Property tax and management fees have to be settled on what is owed.
Valuations have to be done on property.
Property surveys may also have to be completeed before sale.

Most of this has to be done before contracts are issued, and people wonder why the selling process can take so long, I would say 8-10 weeks can be an optimistic expectation.

All of that should be legally required to be done before the house even goes up for sale. At the very least, it's ridiculous that some one can put something for sale without having both the deeds and land registry ready to go.

2013Lara

Took us 18 months

Edited to add, extreme case here!

Shoobs86

i am actually in shock. Lads, if this is going to take another 3 months I am screwed. I can't live with my grandmother for that long - there's other people waiting to move in. We got contracts already on the 2nd Feb; my solicitor sent back questions. He emailed to say that they haven't got back to him, but he will chase it up.

Someone mentioned about Friday's being the day for post - I only ever get an update on a Friday evening. It's so frustrating. I agree they are trying to justify the costs. For example, my solicitor fees include postage and phone calls - he hasn't phoned me once. He won't have to post anything to me, so it must be to the other solicitor. With regard to the land registration he is charging me €600 which I think is unfair, because another solicitor told me that if the land is already registered (by the seller) then he could reduce his costs by €600 because he wouldn't have to do that. I don't know the rules around it, that's just what he said. He was more expensive in general though, so didn't go with him.

The_Honeybadger

3 months from offer accepted to keys for us. Both sides wanted a quick sale but our solicitor found an issue that took 6 weeks to resolve so she stalled things, as it turns out she saved us a good sum of money by doing so. There really is no excuse for dragging it out unless of course there is a significant issue.

Shoobs86

Just as an update, we are still not near signing contracts. They keep putting us off saying the land is registered but still no contracts. I checked landdirect.ie this morning and it's still not done. beyond frustrated now.

th283

Shoobs86 wrote: »

Just as an update, we are still not near signing contracts. They keep putting us off saying the land is registered but still no contracts. I checked landdirect.ie this morning and it's still not done. beyond frustrated now.

I’m in the same boat, I went sale agreed a few weeks before you (mid December) and am still waiting too. Heard nothing until the beginning of the month when I got a phone call from the estate agent to say the contracts were being issued, i signed 2 days later and was due to draw down the mortgage last week only to get a call the evening before to say the sellers hadn’t signed the contracts yet and their solicitor said it could be 3-4 weeks before they would. It’s so frustrating

daheff

Bought a house last year. At the time my solicitor told me he can do it in 28 days if pushed.....6 months later we closed :eek:

won't be using him again

missy_t

16 months here. Lots of issues but none were ever explained clearly to us. We would have pulled out but nothing else suitable had come up in the area.

Rew

Problem is most property hasn't changed hands recently and then on top of that there are so many stupid things like NPPR, water property tax that have to be handed by a clueless vendor that it slows it all down.

Im buying a house ATM that my first solicitor basically said wasn't possible to buy it, 2nd said it was grand and it will go though shortly. With those 2 extremes for the same house, same paperwork is it any wonder its a complete mess.

Samuel T. Cogley

Keep looking, you really should have done that from Day 1 but now is better than never, and be prepared to pull out. If you're serious about pulling out it's amazing how quickly things suddenly get done.

Sleepy

Took about 6 months for us.

I genuinely felt like the solicitors were a waste of money. They really add very little to the process and I reckon any literate person could manage to do for themselves quite easily.

It's a cartel and it wouldn't surprise me one bit to learn that there's a culture of deliberately delaying things to make their couple of hours work look like more than it is to justify their four-figure fees.

Captain Flaps

Went sale agreed on 23rd March, just got confirmation we're closing 12th July a few days ago - and everyone seems to think we did well to fit the whole process into 14 weeks

VW 1

Four months for me due to tardiness of responses from the vendor solicitor. Family of the vendor were living in the house and did not want the property sold, made things pretty awkward in terms of correspondence and dotting i's and crossing t's.

Shoobs86

Samuel T. Cogley wrote: »

Keep looking, you really should have done that from Day 1 but now is better than never, and be prepared to pull out. If you're serious about pulling out it's amazing how quickly things suddenly get done.

I'm tempted to now, because my mortgage approval is up in July and I don't want to apply again. The only problem is that the house is a steal, and we can't afford anything over 100k. We have been looking since we went sale agreed and there's nothing in good condition in our budget.

Ursus Horribilis

6 weeks for me but it was a few years ago when things were quieter.

listermint

I think we were just over 4 months. Alot of problems with the Banks cant remember for the life of me's name department who couldnt understand what a Folio Map meant and that the Land Registry Map superseded a water rights of access that was over 100 years old and not marked on the map but outside the boundaries. Clearly someone who was used to dealing with housing estates and couldnt fathom logic nor legal language.

Shoobs86

So now my solicitor and the vendors solicitor are arguing. I was booked to sign contracts on Tuesday, then that was cancelled because they only sent a copy of the folio and not the real thing. I was booked to sign today but the vendors solicitor refused to email an amended version of the contract until he got the original back by post. I'm honestly a basket case. The auctioneer is threatening that the vendor will just pull out. I have nowhere to live because I have been sale agreed for 6 months on this house already and my relative to is letting me stay needs me out ASAP. I don't know what to do. If I pull out, I will have to apply for mortgage again and get less money because I am older. The budget they have given me is so low that there's nothing else decent around. If it falls through now I have to go back renting which means I can't save - in fact all my savings would be gone in about three months because the rents are so high now. freaking. out.

Moomintroll99

8 weeks from sale agreed to keys for us, but we were cash buyers and vendor had no mortgage, so it should have been super simple. Our solicitor was great, vendor's solicitor was fine too but the vendors mucked us around endlessly & didn't sign the papers till the day of the sale! Solicitors actually had all the work prepared in advance, we had signed contracts weeks before, so vendors signed and solicitors completed the sale all in a single day.

We have also bought & sold in Australia a few times. bought at auction and it took 4 weeks to settle, bought via private treaty before that and it took about 6 weeks. Sold one property to a relative, so no estate agents involved and that still took about 6 weeks. So it's not always super quick there, more that there is less room for solicitors to be slow and vendors are more locked into particular settlement dates.

Some states in Australia also allow vendors to keep deposits if settlement doesn't happen by a specified date, which tends to keep everyone motivated to get things finished!