Buying a house takes 21 days in Oz

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for the life of me's name department who couldnt understand what a Folio Map meant and that the Land Registry Map superseded a water rights of access that was over 100 years old and not marked on the map but outside the boundaries.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!