Selling Your Home – The Process

THE PROCESS

I HAVE A BUYER. WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?

STEP 1

INITIAL CONTACT & COMMUNICATION

The buyer’s offer to purchase is received and reviewed with your real estate agent.  If you have no agent, you should have us review the offer Offer before accepting it.

After you accept the offer, the buyers attend to satisfying their conditions (securing financing, a building inspection, insurability, sale of existing home, etc.).

Once the buyer’s conditions are satisfied, the sale contract becomes “firm” (goes ahead).  Your real estate agent sends us  the sale contract documents.

We contact you by phone, email or in person to confirm our engagement if not already done.

We send you a detailed letter covering the following:

    • Confirmation of the major terms of the sale contract
    • Explanation of the anticipated expenses and other costs for budgeting purposes
    • Explanation of the steps involved including the our tasks and your tasks and the anticipated timing for completing the various steps
    • We list the information we need from you
    • We provide you with other information you should know
STEP 2

LAWYER PREPARATION AND CO-ORDINATION


  • We order discharge/payout statements from your lender(s) for any mortgages or secured lines of credit registered against the property and for any bridge loan (if applicable)
  • We receive the real estate agent’s invoice (if applicable)
  • We calculate the adjustments to the sale price for items such as: the deposit, property taxes, condo fees (if applicable), oil/propane (if applicable)
  • We review closing documents prepared by buyer’s lawyer
  • We address any title problems identified by buyer’s lawyer
  • We prepare other documentation for the transfer

STEP 3

PRE-CLOSING MEETING


  • We contact you to schedule a meeting (either in person or via video) and notify you what to bring for the meeting, such as keys and ID (usually a few days before closing)
  • We meet with you before closing (usually a few days before closing):
    • Photocopy your ID (a legal requirement)
    • Review a detailed breakdown of money coming in and going out of our trust account and calculation of your net proceeds
    • Review, explanation and signing of closing documents
    • Explanation of the closing process and when you can expect to receive your net proceeds

STEP 4

CLOSING AND REPORTING


  • We courier keys (unless you are using a lockbox) and documents to the buyer’s lawyer / receive cheques and other documents from the buyer’s lawyer by courier
  • Electronic registration of transfer in the Land Registry system, making the transfer of ownership complete
  • We contact you immediately to notify you that the sale has closed and we then deposit your net proceeds to your bank account
  • We send out payments for the mortgage(s) and real estate commissions (if applicable)
  • We send our final report to you
  • We follow up with mortgage lender if necessary to ensure they have discharged their mortgage against your former property