The day the house becomes yours

On settlement day your lender pays the balance of the price to the seller’s side, the seller’s mortgage is paid out, the duty is paid, and the title is transferred into your name. In Victoria this now usually happens electronically, in a workspace the lawyers and the banks sign into, so nobody sits around a table with cheques. Faster, and completely invisible, which is why it can feel like nothing is happening at all.

Your conveyancer or lawyer runs your side. Your lender has to be ready with the money. The seller’s side has to be ready to discharge their mortgage. It settles when all three line up, and when a settlement is late it’s very nearly always because one of them isn’t.

1. Early on

   Your finance is formally approved and the loan documents arrive. Read them, sign them, send them back. Sitting on loan documents is the most common cause of a late settlement, and it’s the one part of this entirely within your control.

2. Next

   Your conveyancer runs the searches, prepares the transfer, and works out the adjustments. Council rates, water and any owners corporation fees get split between you and the seller according to the settlement date, so you pay only for the days you own it.

3. A few days out

   You get a statement showing exactly what has to be in your account, the duty and the fees included. Move the money across early. Daily transfer limits and bank holds have ruined more settlement days than anything else on this page.

4. Just before

   You do your final inspection. The standard contract gives you the right to walk through the property again shortly before settlement, and it’s the last moment at which anything can be raised.

5. The morning it settles

   Money moves, your conveyancer calls or messages you, and the agent releases the keys once settlement is confirmed. Not a minute before, no matter how well you and the agent get along.

You’re checking three things. That the house is in the condition it was in when you signed. That everything the contract said would stay has stayed, and that anything the seller agreed to fix has been fixed.

• Every appliance and fixture named in the contract is still there. The dishwasher, the heater, the air conditioner, the blinds, the light fittings.
• Nothing was damaged on the way out, particularly walls, floors and door frames.
• The hot water runs, the heating and cooling work, and the power is still connected.
• Rubbish and belongings are gone, including whatever lives in the shed and under the house.
• Anything the seller agreed to repair has been repaired and not covered over.

If something is wrong, tell your conveyancer straight away, before settlement and not after. Once it settles, the problem is yours and you have nothing left to hold. Before it settles, money can be held back until it’s dealt with.

Change the locks, or at least have them rekeyed. You have no idea how many sets of keys exist, and neither does the seller. Connect the utilities before moving day, not on it. Update your address on everything. Then put the contract, the vendor statement and the title paperwork somewhere you’ll still be able to find them in ten years.

And then it’s yours. Nobody warns you about the first night, when the house is completely empty and every sound in it is unfamiliar. That’s the part people tell us about afterwards.

If any of this is confusing, that’s normal, and sorting it out is as much our job as selling you the house was. Ask us anything, in whichever language you’d rather have it in.