26/09/2023
🏡✨ Settlement of your sale is booked for today, and everything seems on track.
📞 You get a call from your law firm 15 minutes after the anticipated settlement time. You expect them to tell you your settlement is complete.
❌ Instead they inform you of an error in one of the bank's documents. The bank needs to prepare and post a replacement from the mainland.
🙁 This means your settlement needs to be rescheduled.
🚚 Meanwhile, your buyer has their removalist truck loaded and waiting to deliver their belongings. Desperate to get the keys, they have asked whether you’re willing to grant them early possession so they can move in before settlement.
…
Unfortunately, this happens more often than we’d like.
In Tasmania, we still do paper settlements for conveyancing: representatives for the various parties meet at a nominated settlement venue to exchange hard copy documents for cheques.
If issues are discovered at settlement such as document errors or missing or incorrect cheques, settlement can fail. While some issues might just push settlement to later in the day, others necessitate rescheduling to another date.
Delays of any length can be stressful for the parties involved. If a buyer is waiting to move, there’s a good chance they’ll ask for early possession.
It’s up to the vendor whether they agree to grant early possession.
Here’s a few pros and cons to consider ⬆️
