Tips & Procedures on Residential Sales
Residential Sales Tips
- After you have signed an Agreement of Purchase and Sale
(the “Offer”) you will need to retain a lawyer to act on your behalf to
complete the sale of your property. The lawyer’s job is to ensure that the
transfer of the property from the seller to the buyer is properly completed on
the closing date. This process is usually referred to as a “Closing”.
- Instruct your real estate agent to send us a copy of the
Offer, including all waivers and the survey, if available.
- We will require certain information from you as follows:
- Who is on title and their spousal status.
- Your forwarding address.
- Where is your existing mortgage? What Bank and Mortgage
Reference Number?
- What are the property taxes and how much have you paid for the current
year?
- Is your water billed by a meter or on a flat-rate basis? If a flat-rate,
what was the amount of
your last water bill?
- If there are any tenants being assumed by the buyer, we will require
particulars of the
tenancies including rental amounts, last month’s rental deposit, etc.
- We will communicate with the buyer’s solicitor(s) and answer all
requisitions they may have
regarding your property. We will also ensure that the proper adjustments for
property taxes, common
expenses, water bills (if flat-rate), and rents (if applicable) are made on
the closing date.
- We will also write to your mortgage lender to obtain a discharge statement
for the closing date.
Any monies owing will be paid from the sale proceeds. We will obtain
particulars/confirmation of the mortgage discharge registration.
- About two to three weeks before the closing date, you should:
- Call your insurance broker to cancel your insurance effective the day after
the closing date (in
the event that there is a delay in the Closing); and
- Call your utilities companies to advise of the sale and request meter readings
for the closing date.
- If you pay your property taxes by pre-authorized payment, call the Tax
Department to cancel any
payments due after the closing date.
- If you are selling a condominium unit, call the property manager to have
your monthly common
expense payments stopped, commencing with the first payment due after the
closing date. If you pay by
post-dated cheques, ask them to return your cheques. If you pay by
pre-authorized payment, please
instruct the property manager to cancel this arrangement.
- Prior to the Closing, we will call you to arrange a sign-up meeting. At
this meeting, you will
review and sign the closing documents. Please bring two acceptable pieces of
identification to the
meeting (including one picture ID). In addition, we will require keys for the
property.
- On Closing, we will exchange documents, keys and funds with the buyer’s
lawyer. If all goes
smoothly, your funds will be available at our office for pick-up sometime
between 2 and 5 p.m. on the
closing date.
- Don't hesitate to ask us anything about your Closing at any time.