ADVERTISING REGULATIONS

As compensation lawyers, we are not to advertise personal injury and compensation legal services in NSW and QLD due to the operation of relevant law- unless we are providing legal advices to our existing clients.

To proceed to the rest of the website, please choose from the 3 options below.

Alternatively, at any time, you may email your enquiry to info@wangs.com.au or call us on 9797 8688

Home > Practice Areas > Property Conveyancing > Residential Property (Strata)

Residential Property (Strata)

Residential Property (Strata)

Property acquisition

There are three ways to purchase residential property (e.g. apartment, unit, studio and townhouse within a strata plan) in Australia:

(1)    Once you find a property, we will go through the entire Contract with you and assist you in undertaking pre-exchange due diligence. If you satisfy with the terms of the Contract and the results from due diligence, you sign the Contract and pay a deposit (usually 10% of the Purchase Price) to the Agent’s trust account. This is the usual and safest way to buy property in Australia. However, it is important to note that the Vendor can sell the property to another person at any time before exchange of Contract.

(2)    If you are purchasing a property, you may wish to exchange the Contract at the Agent’s office but you need to ensure there is a 5-business day cooling off period so that you can rescind the Contract at any time before the expiration of the cooling off period. When you sign the Contract, you will pay a 0.25% deposit to the Agent. Once we receive the Contract, we will explain the Contract to you and assist you in undertaking pre-exchange due diligence. If you satisfy with the terms of the Contract and the result of due diligence, you must pay the balance of the deposit (usually 10% of the Purchase Price) before the expiration of the cooling off period. If you no longer wish to go ahead with the Contract, we can assist you to rescind the Contract before the end of the cooling off period. However, you will forfeit the 0.25% deposit paid to the Agent.

(3)    You purchase the property at an auction. There is no cooling off period for purchasing property at an auction and that the terms of Contract are generally not amendable. As such, we recommend you to contact us prior to the auction day.

As buying a property is an important financial decision, we always recommend our clients to obtain reports such as building and strata reports before exchange so as to ensure the integrity of the property.

From the Contract and the Strata Report, you should consider additional issues such as:

  1. Consider the Strata Plans for issues such as unit entitlement, size of the property and carspace/garage and the location of common properties.
  2. Consider the By Laws.
  3. Current strata levies and special levies (if any).
  4. Whether the Owner Corporation has sufficient money in the administrative and sinking funds.
  5. Is the Owner Corporation proposing to undertake extensive structural repairs thereby increasing the likelihood of imposing higher strata levies or special levies in the future?

Further if you concern that the vendor or the pervious owners have undertaken extension of building works to the property, we will seek to obtain from the Vendor the relevant approval from the Owners Corporation and where necessary the Council.

Also, it is vital for you to obtain the necessary unconditional loan approval from your financier before committing yourself to the purchase.

Once contract has been exchanged, we will ensure your matter proceed smoothly to settlement including arranging settlement with your financier. We also recommend you to undertake appropriate post-exchange statutory searches so as to ensure the property is not subject to any adverse affectation. If any of the searches indicates an adverse affectation, you can rescind the Contract and get back the deposit.

Although these reports and statutory searches are at your expense, we strongly believe a small outlay now may prevent an unexpected large outlay at a later date should problems arise.

Property disposal

By law, you must have a contract before you can list your residential property on the market.

Upon receiving instructions from you, we will prepare the Sale Contract in accordance with your instructions. We will also ensure that the Contract complies with the Conveyancing (Sale of Land) Regulation 2005 (NSW). For strata properties, it is important to inform us if special levies has been or will be imposing upon the property.

As you are required by law to make certain statutory warranties to the Purchaser, a breach of which entitles the Purchaser to rescind the Contract and get back the deposit, we will use our best endeavor to ensure you can comply with these warranties so that the risk of rescission by the Purchasers can be minimized. We will also arrange discharge of mortgage from your bank if necessary.

In addition, we can also provide general tax advices (including GGT and GST) on your disposal of property.

Once the contract has been exchanged, we will ensure the matter proceed to settlement smoothly.