Tag Archives: property

Things to look for when buying Investment Property

Over the years we’ve fielded many questions about property. While we try our best to answer with all questions in relation to the legal process of conveyancing, we get a lot of questions sometimes about things like price, location, and whether the property’s a good investment.

Unfortunately we can’t tell you whether your purpose will be a good investment or not – that’s something that you or your financial planner should figure out – but we can tell you what to consider when you are thinking about purchasing investment property, such as:

  • Consider your alternatives. While we’ve noticed that property investment is really popular lately, there’s always other ways how you may invest your money.
  • Consider the type of property. Property investment isn’t just limited to residential property. There’s also offices, retail property, and other commercial properties available.
  • Consider what the initial costs would be. These include conveyancing costs, stamp duty, as well as other lending or broking costs.
  • Consider what the on-going costs would be. These would be things like land tax, council rates, water rates, strata levies, maintenance costs, insurance, as well as mortgage repayments. Be realistic and don’t skimp out, especially with maintenance costs.
  • Compare these on-going costs with what you would likely yield in rental. Take into account that you might not always have the property tenanted, and you may not always get the rental yield you want.
  • Take into account likely changes in the interest rates.
  • Consider the rate of capital growth of the property by comparing it to the rates in the suburb that the property is in.
  • Get tax advice about your proposed investment.
  • Always have an exit strategy. An investment is just that – an investment. It’s not an investment if you hold on to it and not sell it. It’s not an investment if you plan to have it as a second home. Always consider that you’ll end up selling it when the time is right. Plan for when that timing is – or plan for how to dispose of it if it’s not working out.

Ern, our principal, has previously written on this subject, and given some very valuable insight into this. That being said, good luck, and happy hunting!

Conveyancing Enquiry

For more information on our conveyancing services and quotes on our professional fees, please request a Conveyancing Fees quote. One of our experienced property lawyers will contact you to explore how we can assist you with your property transaction.

Kenneth Ti

Kenneth Ti
Property Lawyer

This website is supported by Phang Legal, an incorporated legal practice based in Parramatta CBD providing conveyancing services across Sydney and New South Wales. Kenneth Ti is an associate solicitor with Phang Legal.

Gazumping – What a funny word!

I’ve always found the word “Gazumping” to be a pretty funny word. Where did it come from? Why does it mean what it means?

Despite my fascination with the word, unfortunately, in a seller’s market, gazumping can happen to you. What is it? Well, it’s what happens when you have a verbal agreement with a real estate agent about the price of a property that you want to purchase, and then bam, in the next week, when you’ve figured out your finance, and gotten maybe some legal advice, the real estate agent says to you:

“Sorry, someone else offered a higher price, and the vendor’s accepted their offer”

Despite having a verbal agreement, you can’t enforce that agreement. If you’ve spent some money on getting pre-purchase inspections, or some legal advice, you’re out of pocket. The vendor has no obligation to refund you for any costs that you’ve incurred – just because you’ve got a verbal agreement doesn’t mean that it’s binding.That being said, if you paid some sort of “expression of interest” fee to the vendor – that must be refunded.

In New South Wales, a contract to sell or purchase property is only binding between the parties if a specific process

has been followed. This is where:

  1. Two contracts are issued, one to the purchaser and the other to the vendor
  2. The parties each sign their copy of the contract
  3. The parties each exchange their contracts – the purchaser holds on to the contract that the vendor has signed, and vice versa

It is also usual that during this time, the purchase gives a deposit of 10% to the vendor (or their real estate agent).

You can’t really protect yourself against gazumping unless the contracts have been signed and exchanged – but you can certainly minimise it by:

  1. Making sure that your finance is ready, and that you don’t need some extra time to arrange for it
  2. Minimising any delay between the offer and exchange of contracts, such as getting the contract asap so that your solicitor can examine it, or getting your pre-purchase inspections done as soon as possible.

That being said, you shouldn’t rush this decision by just going ahead and signing and exchanging the contract. You should always carefully consider everything before signing and exchanging the contract – because if you decide at a later stage to exercise your cooling off, that will result in you forfeiting 0.25% of the purchase price.

When purchasing property, you must strike a balance between being cautious and making sure that you’re satisfied with the property before signing the contract, and acting swiftly to make sure that nobody else gazumps you.

Our experienced lawyers understand you fully when it comes to these things, and where possible, will give you speedy advice to help you with your purchase.

Conveyancing Enquiry

For more information on our conveyancing services and quotes on our professional fees, please request a Conveyancing Fees quote. One of our experienced property lawyers will contact you to explore how we can assist you with your property transaction.

Kenneth Ti

Kenneth Ti
Property Lawyer

This website is supported by Phang Legal, an incorporated legal practice based in Parramatta CBD providing conveyancing services across Sydney and New South Wales. Kenneth Ti is an associate solicitor with Phang Legal.

Living in a Strata Scheme

Strata properties – like apartment units, some townhouses, or residential flats – are immensely popular especially in places like Sydney, where there’s a shortage of space. Living in a property that is part of a Strata Scheme is a little bit different from living in a free-standing house, and from time to time we get questions about what living in a Strata Scheme means.

To start off with, while you own your unit or apartment, ownership of the building itself is shared between the other owners in the building. Collectively, all of the owners form the “Owners corporation”, which has responsibility for the maintenance and upkeep of the building and the common property to the building (such as gardens, parking areas, stairwells, the roof, and lifts).

The Owners Corporation makes decisions about things like employing a Strata Manager, about budgeting for repairs and maintenance, paying council rates and fees, insurances, paying utility bills, collecting the maintenance costs from the other owners, or for setting down rules to keep the peace (such as pets or noise rules), or rules to increase (or maintain) the value of the property (such as graffiti, hanging laundry, or things like that).

While it is not compulsory for you to attend owners corporation meetings, it’s commonly thought that a strata scheme operates better if everyone participates.This co-operative way of managing the property however may not be for everyone and we are aware that sometimes things get heated between members of

the owners corporation.

If you are interested in purchasing Strata property you can order for a pre-purchase strata inspection report, that allows you to have a look at the records of the owners corporation. Once you have that information you can make a better decision about moving forward with your purchase.

 

 

Conveyancing Enquiry

For more information on our conveyancing services and quotes on our professional fees, please request a Conveyancing Fees quote. One of our experienced property lawyers will contact you to explore how we can assist you with your property transaction.

Kenneth Ti

Kenneth Ti
Property Lawyer

This website is supported by Phang Legal, an incorporated legal practice based in Parramatta CBD providing conveyancing services across Sydney and New South Wales. Kenneth Ti is an associate solicitor with Phang Legal.

Making sure that everything is there in the Contract

When looking around for property – whether it’s investment purposes or for your dream home, real estate agents are often your first point for information. Through their sales pitch, they can tell you all sorts of things about the property and the neighborhood it’s in. The information from them will certainly help you towards making a decision.

Despite this, sometimes real estate agents tend to “stretch the truth” a little when making their sales pitch.Because of this, you really need to make sure that as much of what they promise to you is contained in the contract of sale – preferably before you sign it!

We’ve had situations where a real estate agent promised that the property came with parking, but no parking was indicated on the contract. We’ve had situations where the real estate agent promised that the strata rates for the property was quite low, yet when we checked them it was two times higher than what they promised.

Unfortunately practically all contracts contain a special condition that says that the contract contains all the promises and information needed in the transaction. If a real estate agent has promised you something that’s not in the contract – then tough!

Because of this it’s very important to check the contract and make sure that everything’s there. You should also always do the due diligence, through reading through the contract, or ordering pre-purchase mexican pharmacy online inspections. We as your solicitors also do some due diligence of our own – double checking the information attached to the contract and making sure that it’s up to date.

At the end of the day – while the information that a real estate agent has to give you is valuable, you should always continue to ask questions, do your own investigations, and double check everything!

 

Conveyancing Enquiry

For more information on our conveyancing services and quotes on our professional fees, please request a Conveyancing Fees quote. One of our experienced property lawyers will contact you to explore how we can assist you with your property transaction.

Kenneth Ti

Kenneth Ti
Property Lawyer

This website is supported by Phang Legal, an incorporated legal practice based in Parramatta CBD providing conveyancing services across Sydney and New South Wales. Kenneth Ti is an associate solicitor with Phang Legal.

What property should I buy?

I can’t begin to tell you how many times I’ve been asked by clients questions like:

  • What property should I buy?
  • Should I buy an apartment of a house?
  • How much should I pay?
  • Is this a good price?
  • Is this a good area?

Having provided conveyancing services as part of my legal practice for over a decade, I’ve had the privilege of experiencing the property market through my clients as well as my own activities. I’ve ‘bought’ and ‘sold’ hundreds of property vicariously and those experiences have influenced some of my thinking. Of course I’m more than happy to lend a personal opinion, and even though it’s a personal opinion that has evolved over time, it’s still far from a professional opinion.

After all, from a professional perspective, I’m just a lawyer (and still practicing/practising – pun intended). I’m able to advise clients on the process and procedures, as well as the legal rights with respect to the property transaction or property ownership – but questions that go beyond that are not with my professional expertise, and I make that very clear to my clients.

Often, if I’m pressed for more than a personal opinion and clients want a definitive answer, I answer their question with a question. WHAT DO YOU WANT? Sounds annoying, but it’s a legitimate question to a question.

At the end of the day, that’s the key question that needs to be answered, isn’t it? If you don’t know what you want, no one else can nor should tell you – or at least that’s what I think.

What you buy and whether it’s suitable to you depends largely on your dreams or desires, your motivation or your plan, or even your stage in life. Everyone’s different, so what might be right for someone else won’t necessarily be right for you. If you’re buying for investment, you might be looking at a totally different property to what you’d look at if you’re buying your home. You might be looking at one kind of property if you’re single or a couple without kids, and another kind of property if you’ve got a family.

For anyone who’s not familiar with the property market or the property industry, there’s always the danger that you’ll sign a contract for something you don’t really want (perhaps because you were persuaded or influenced by an accomplished real estate agent). I guess that’s why in New South Wales, the law provides that a cooling off period applies to residential property purchased under private treaty. The cooling off period minimises the consequences of buyer’s regret. For more information regarding the cooling off period, have a look at some previous/related articles listed below.

On the other hand, if you really feel you need professional assistance there are professionals like some financial planners, or maybe real estate agents or more appropriately buyers-agents who can provide advice or at least help you clarify your property goals. Perhaps they’re the most appropriate professionals to be speaking to regarding property – especially if you don’t know and you need someone to help you work through those questions yourself (after all, you don’t know what you don’t know, right?).

So there you have it – as many of my clients would testify, I’m more than happy to share my personal views on buying or selling property. I haven’t done poorly through property, but I’m certainly no property tycoon (far from it). I’ve just got a modest property holding which I hope/plan to continue to grow over the years. My strategies are based on my personal and professional experiences but not formulated on anything too formal or complex.

If you’re still hungry like me, then the best advice is to really speak to as many people as you can. There are so many people involved in or ancillary to the property market. Aside from real estate agents, you have bankers and finance brokers, other lawyer and licenced conveyancers, accountants and tax agents, as well as builders and developers. I don’t think it matters how experienced or inexperienced you might think you are in buying or selling property, be open to learning something new and you never know what will come of it. I know I’m constantly learning from all the people around me and enjoying every moment. I’m sure you will too – and then maybe I’ll come and ask you ‘what property should I buy?’

Conveyancing Enquiry

For more information on our conveyancing services and quotes on our professional fees, please request a Conveyancing Fees quote. One of our experienced property lawyers will contact you to explore how we can assist you with your property transaction.

Ern Phang

Ern Phang
Director - Property Lawyer

This website is supported by Phang Legal, an incorporated legal practice based in Parramatta CBD providing conveyancing services across Sydney and New South Wales. is the solicitor director of Phang Legal.

Lawyers and Licenced Conveyancers

Would you use a lawyer or a licenced conveyancer?

Many of the older generation of lawyers complain about the introduction of licenced conveyancers to assist people with their property transactions. Obviously, they remember the times (ie,’ the good ole days’) when the conveyancing services market was only for lawyers. It was also the time when legal fees for conveyancing services were according to a scale rather than subject to market forces as they are today.

For me, I can’t provide any personal comparisons. Even though I’ve been in the legal industry since the late 1990s, the changes to the conveyancing services market took place before my time. For me, licenced conveyancers are an accepted part of the market in which I operate. I know a fair few licenced conveyancers and I think they have their place along side lawyers and offer clients a valuable alternative to using a lawyer for buying or selling property.

Without overly stereotyping the market, some clients only want conveyancing services and don’t want other information/advice regarding other areas of law, even if it’s relates in some way to their property transaction (yes, this is true). Sometimes that’s because clients make an informed choice but sometimes it’s because they’re not fully aware of how all areas of law and life are interrelated. For clients who can and do make an informed decision, then of course this is in their best interest. Those clients need and want a licenced conveyancer – and that’s it. There’s nothing wrong with that, right? A competent professional is a competent professional regardless of whether they’re a lawyer or a licenced conveyancer. But for the purpose of the clients’ property transactions a licenced conveyancer might not only be suitable but might also be the most appropriate professional.

HOWEVER, if clients only ask after licenced conveyancers because of a misunderstanding or lack of understanding of what a lawyer does or how their property transaction might give rise to other issues in other areas of law, that’s a real shame! I think there’s an opportunity and an important responsibility to educate and increase awareness about the differences between lawyers and licenced conveyancers and the different types of services that they provide.

For example, while the buying or selling of a property may be the key objective, many clients forget that this could have further reaching consequences on other areas in their lives, such as their estate and their estate planning or may their personal liabilities, arising from such things as taxation or duties. Couples who buy or sell property may also find themselves in more complex situations arising from relationship issues, which of course are rarely considered in the midst of their property transaction, but arise at a time when it is most convenient only to be compounded by not having considered it in the first place. A licenced conveyancer may assist them with their property transaction, but then who provides the right advice regarding how that property transaction affects other parts of their lives? Of course I’m not saying that in providing conveyancing services every lawyer takes a more holistic approach and provides advice to a clients that is beyond the property transaction. But this is what I do.

I think one of the biggest disservice a lawyer could provide would be to not advice their client about certain issues that the lawyer knows affects or will affect their client just because it was outside of the scope of their current retainer. The law is much more than just the immediate here and now.

A pessimistic outlook from an optimistic lawyer could save you a lot of cost and heartache in the future.

Conveyancing Enquiry

For more information on our conveyancing services and quotes on our professional fees, please request a Conveyancing Fees quote. One of our experienced property lawyers will contact you to explore how we can assist you with your property transaction.

Ern Phang

Ern Phang
Director - Property Lawyer

This website is supported by Phang Legal, an incorporated legal practice based in Parramatta CBD providing conveyancing services across Sydney and New South Wales. is the solicitor director of Phang Legal.

What is an off-the-plan purchase?

Some property purchases are “off-the-plan” purchases. These purchases are different than a standard purchase in a few ways.

Generally speaking however, an “off-the-plan” purchase means purchasing land or an apartment that does not currently exist. The idea is that the vendor – typically a developer – intends to build a number of houses or apartments on the property and then to subdivide the land, allowing the vendor to sell those houses or apartments to prospective purchasers.

An “off-the-plan” purchase can be thought of as a “promise” that in the future, a separate and distinct parcel of land will be available to be transferred to the purchaser. There are no inspections that can be made and unfortunately the display home does not necessarily show what the final product would look like.

A typical “off-the-plan” contract will include a draft plan by the vendor showing how the subdivision would look like. It would also include a “sunset date”, or a time limit, of when the vendor must complete the works and the subdivision. This time limit is typically within 15 months to 3 years. The contract would also contain clauses that say that if these conditions are not met the purchasers can cancel the contract and recover any deposits paid.

Because of the nature of an”off-the-plan” order viagra online purchase, it is difficult to predict when settlement is to occur. Due to this there is some level of uncertainty – at least when it comes to timing – when it comes to “off-the-plan” purchase.

Every contract is different, however a typical “off-the-plan” contract will contain provisions in relation to any changes in the plans, or where building work is part of the contract, a defects warranty period.

In the end, due to the differences between an “off-the-plan” purchase and a standard contract, you do need to consider whether an “off-the-plan” purchase is suitable for you.

If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact us or drop us an e-mail through the quick enquiry form!

 

Conveyancing Enquiry

For more information on our conveyancing services and quotes on our professional fees, please request a Conveyancing Fees quote. One of our experienced property lawyers will contact you to explore how we can assist you with your property transaction.

Kenneth Ti

Kenneth Ti
Property Lawyer

This website is supported by Phang Legal, an incorporated legal practice based in Parramatta CBD providing conveyancing services across Sydney and New South Wales. Kenneth Ti is an associate solicitor with Phang Legal.