Five Must-Dos Before Selling a Home
Introduction to Conditions for Selling a Home
When contemplating selling your home there are some very important conditions to be met.
Before beginning, make an appointment to see your lawyer, who will advise you on the conditions for selling a home such as, having your house surveyed, contacting your financial intuition and recommending a reliable real estate agent.
Here we will examine the main conditions, along with some not so obvious conditions involved in selling your home, which hopefully will make the process straightforward and less stressful.
Conditions for Selling a Home
1. Contact your lawyer.
This is a mandatory condition to ensure the conveyance (or Missives) of the property goes through legally, smoothly and in a timely manner.
Your lawyer will conduct a property search to check other essential conditions; ensuring there is a house deed, that it is in your name, and that the house is not under any foreclosure conditions. He or she may advise you to have the house surveyed as it has to be in sellable condition for any buyer to get a mortgage. You may also meet with a mortgage loan officer in his or her office if needed.
In meeting these conditions, along with preparing all the other paperwork it takes a lawyer a minimum of six weeks, so get an early appointment to see him before doing anything else.
2. Contact your financial institution.
This is another mandatory condition if you need to settle your current mortgage and apply to get new mortgage set up.
3. Pay all outstanding utility bills.
This mandatory condition involves getting in touch with your telephone, gas and electricity suppliers to inform them of your removal date, also pay your water rates and local council tax up to this date.
4. Contact a real estate agent to sell the house or plan ahead if you are planning to do it yourself.
This is not a necessary condition, but I have found out by experience that real estate agents do help to sell properties. This is due to their experience in Internet advertising, local paper advertising, displaying your house for sale in their office window and production a professional brochure containing photos of your home and other pertinent details.
If you are planning to sell it yourself, plan to show the viewers around the house, providing answers to any questions they come up with, as meeting this condition will increase the chance of a sale. Be sure to make arrangements for your pets during viewings.
5. Have the house inspected by an appraiser.
This is not necessary, as the buyer will have to organize their own appraisal of your house; a condition required by the banks, for mortgage applications.
Also, in the US you must complete a sellers disclosure statement. This is a form on which the seller discloses any relevant facts that may affect the property, but are not readily available or obvious to the buyer.
Notwithstanding, it is still advisable to have the house inspected by an appraiser who will issue a report on the property noting any problems and giving an accurate market price.
References:
- irs.gov - changes to housing laws in USA.
- enzinearticles - home selling help.
- helpmoving.com - tips on selling houses
