additional costs

Hi Bert
I had a carpenter friend do the building and pest inspection for me recently. There’s no recourse if he missed something but it’s a brick building and I was pretty confident I didn’t need to pay someone for a written inspection. I did the conveyancing myself. So no solicitors fees. There’s a conveyancing kit you can get from the newsagents for $100 which takes you through step by step. It’s really not that difficult for a simple residential property transaction. Everyone from the vendor’s solicitor, to the agent to the lender will tell you need a solicitor. It makes there job marginally easier if you do. I think there’s a whole “fear” factor around buying property that is designed to make us spend lots of money unnecessarily. You don’t have to subscribe to it.

The lender’s solicitor (which you pay for) will make sure the documents are in order at settlement as they have a vested interest. Their valuer, whom you also pay for won’t let you buy a lemon.

Everyone will tell you not to scrimp on costs for the “biggest purchase of your life”. I would say “use your common sense and decide for yourself what is needed”.

Someone mentioned elsewhere on the forum about conveyancers. They specialise in conveyancing but are not solicitors so don’t charge as much. You might want to look into that.

I’ve made an offer on a property that already had an independant building report done as the vendor didn’t want to waste time everytime someone made an offer. There were a lot of things wrong with the property. I wonder if you can negotiate for the vendor to do the inspection? If there’s nothing majorly wrong, then you pay for the report, otherwise they do and you walk away. Has anyone done that?

Regards
Judi