Before selling your property, you will need to engage the services of a property agent, who will not only help you to find prospective buyers, but also assist you during negotiations and generally guide you through the process of home selling.
Since you will need your agent to make recommendations on other issues during the process of home selling, it is important that you enlist the services of an agent you can trust. Once you have found a suitable real estate agent, your work is almost half done.
The formal process of home selling chiefly consists of two steps. When you receive an option fee from a buyer, you should grant him or her an Option to Purchase, which bears your signature, and state the solicitor who will be liaising with the prospective buyer’s legal representative with respect to the sale of the property. The option fee, also known as the booking fee, is typically one per cent of the purchase price of the property.
Most real estate agencies use a standard form of the Option to Purchase, which gives a prospective buyer 14 days to consider purchasing a property. As the seller, you should note that during this period, known as the option period, you are not allowed to offer your property for sale to other interested buyers.
If the prospective buyer decides not to exercise his or her Option to Purchase, or if the option period expires, you are entitled to keep the booking fee deposit and proceed to offer your property for sale to other prospective buyers.
If the buyer chooses to exercise his or her Option to Purchase, he or she must do so during the option period. The buyer must then pay another four per cent of the purchase price within two weeks of exercising the Option to Purchase through his or her solicitor. This deposit will be kept by your solicitor as a stakeholder.
Once these steps have been accomplished, your solicitor will take over and liaise with the buyer’s legal representative regarding the sale and purchase of your property. This should take another eight to 12 weeks, during which, the buyer will have to make the remaining outstanding balance payment on the property. The buyer will also perform a final inspection of your property after which, you must hand over the keys together with the title deed before the sale is deemed to be complete.