argh, confused, overwhelmed and over it!

[Muppity]

Don't sign anything! That is the first rule.

I don't know abotu Queensland in particular but I will assume that it is similar to ACT and NSW where I worked in conveyancing.

Agents love to get you to sign because then they have more chance of getting the sale because people are less willing to back out.

Tell the agent that you will take a copy of the contract with you and will run through it with your solicitor. Or if they are insistent tell them who your solicitor is and that they can send the contract through to them and you will contact the solicitor. Generally solicitors have a fixed price for a conveyance and so going through the contract with them is a really good idea.

Conveyancing contracts are generally standard but they are trained to see if there is anything unusual. While there is a cooling off period by law (I am pretty sure - but there may not be in Qld) it isn't always long enough to get the info that you need.

Solicitors also have ways of getting banks to fast track approvals because they have so many contacts with them, they know the right people to call etc.

Hope that this helps. It is a daunting process the first time but well worth it in the end. Good luck

[Arimeh]

Hollo - first up - Calm down mate.

Second - PM me - I'll give you my number and we can chat. I'm a conveyancer in Queensland.

[Jaycee]

Just a small thing, when you're putting in a clause "subject to finance" make sure you have them write "subject to suitable finance" or something to that effect.
Reason being, you may get knocked back for the loan you're after but get accepted for one of those stupid high interest loans that should never even be on the mark IMO. So if you don't want to go down the high interest loan path (if that's all that you're able to get, which I'm sure won't be the case anyway) you may have to by law as you have finance, just not what you want.
I hope that made sense, I didn't get much sleep last night and seem to be rambling a bit

[Arimeh]

Just a small thing, when you're putting in a clause "subject to finance" make sure you have them write "subject to suitable finance" or something to that effect.

Just to clear this up - in Queensland contracts of sale, this is not necessary as in the Standard Conditions attached to the Contract already states this. Most people write in the Contract (in the finance option) how long they have for the condition, and then under the Lender part "A bank or other financial institution" just to cover themselves.

Hollo - you are more than welcome to ring me to have a chat, I dont' mind. I know how overwhelming it is !!!

Oh and I would think that 21 days for finance approval would be ok - most people go with the standard 14 days - and if it isn't long enough, then extensions of time are the way to go. I had a contract extend up to a MONTH longer for finance approval once, its just risky to ask that if the Seller has another buyer lined up. But in my experience, most sellers say yes because they want the sale to go through.

[2CheekyMonkeys]

i asked aussie about ditching them and going straight to the bank and she said it would be just as lengthy process with the bank cause its the bank and the bank staff/process which are being inunndated at the moment.

there is a 5 day cooling off period but if the bank is so busy i am presuming it will take longer than 5 days for them to accept or reject our application.

the contract asks for 21 days to get finance, i dont know if this will be enough given how long it has already taken just for pre approval.

i am pretty sure that there is a subject to finance clause but i am not 100% cause its a bit confusing the way it is written out. the agent assures us that there is one, cause we have asked him a few times to make sure it has.

so do you guys recommend we hire a solicitor/conveyancer before signing the final contract.. wont this cost us money even if the sale doesnt go through?

LOL Arimeh, i guess i do need to take a chill pill. will pm you. thanks.

sorry to be a pain. i just dont want to get into trouble for anything.

[HotI]

so do you guys recommend we hire a solicitor/conveyancer before signing the final contract.. wont this cost us money even if the sale doesnt go through?

The conveyancer doesn't really cost that much. And if the sale doesn't go through due to finance, they won't have had to do too much anway. It is later on (close to hand over) when they get copies of titles, water info etc that they come in really handy. They know exactly where to obtain everything so can do it much more efficiently than doing it yourself.

[Shalou]

Hi, it is so frustrating when this happens. We got caught in the backlog back in November when the rates first started to really fall and it took almost 5 weeks for our loan to be approved. In this time we'd put an offer in on a house which was accepted and paid the deposit because it had only ever taken a week for approval in the past. The contract gave us 14 days to get finance & a pest and building inspection, but we wouldn't get the inspections done until we knew the loan was going to go through as they are not cheap to have done and we didn't want to waste money. The real estate agent said because we hadn't met the conditions of the contract the owner could pull out of the deal or they could choose to give us an extention. Luckily for us the owners hadn't had any other offers on the house so they decided to stick with us and allow the extension. We were able to settle the loan as soon as the finance came through instead of waiting the extra 4 weeks as the owners had already started to move out. Settlement was still an extra 3 weeks over what we had initally negotiated in the original contract. I found the whole process really frustrating

We didn't use a solicitor but did use an independant conveyancer to do the land titles, rates etc because we wanted to save money on the solicitor fees. Once we had a copy of the contract we'd signed we faxed it to the conveyancer so they could start working out all the paperwork side of things like contacting the council and notifying them that the property had been sold etc. It really depends on how confident you are with reading contracts and understanding them as to whether you need a solicitor, they do charge extra than conveyancers and you need to find one that specialises in property.

[Arimeh]

Shalou

That actually doesn't apply in Queensland - in Queensland all conveyancers are supervised by a solicitor - so you still basically pay as much as a solicitor - cos you can't be a registered conveyancer up here like you can down south.

I studied down in Victoria - so I could be a registered conveyancer down there - but since I'm in Queensland - I do conveyancing - but I work under a solicitor. Cos ya have to. Its da law

[2CheekyMonkeys]

yeah shalou that situation sounds very familiar! luckily for us though the vendor situation is very complicated and they STILL havent accepted or rejected our offer yet. and even more luckily we finally got our pre-approval this week (2 1/2 weeks) i hurried them along i think cause i said we were gonna have a contract signed soon.. hehe

the property we want to buy is a deceased estate and there are three executors of the will who each get a different percentage of the cut. plus, two of them live overseas in different time zones which is hard then for them to communicate. plus, one is dead set on getting the asking price and the other two are negotiable so they are arguing and fighting amongst themselves. it has taken 2 almost 3 weeks and still they havent decided on our offer. so it has kind of worked out well in the end just very frustrating!

if aussie and banks know there is backlog then why tell us in the first place it would only take 3-5 days? if we had known we wouldnt even have started looking yet! grrr.

oh, and the real estae agent is over it too so he is negotiating for his commission to go down and he said something about he is gonna pay the contract deposit himself just to sweeten the deal? that sounds a bit dodgy to me, i dont know exactly what he said or meant cause he spoke to my partner and he didnt really understand him either.

anyway, it is a bit of a drama but feel soooooooooooo much better now that we have pre-approval!