Hi Shane

You can ask to have that condition added to the contract.  You will no doubt have a cooling off period in the contract (varies from about 2 – 5 days depending on what state you are in).  Although technically you have no right to have the contract after you have signed it, what you will effectively be doing is exercising your righ to cool off on the contract and have a new contract drawn up including the condition that the driveway and walkways are included.  The agent can go about this one of two ways:

1.  Simply put an addendum in the contract to that effect
2.  Cancel your current contract and draw up a new contract with the new conditions in it.

If the agent/vendor refuses to agree to the amendment, then exercise your right to cool off and then walk away from buying the unit until you can get the conditions you want.  DON'T just rely on the owner's word.  You are completely entitled to have that condition put in the contract in writing.

All the above is based on the fact that (hopefully) you haven't waived your cooling off rights.

Good luck

K

I'm a lawyer by trade and I have never done my own conveyancing.  Yes you can do it yourself, but if you don't know what you are doing, you could get yourself in all sorts of trouble.

You are better off paying a few hundred dollars and making sure that you get the job done properly (and if it isn't done properly you can sue the conveyancer).

Cheers

K

If you are talking about White Knight tile paint then it is no good on floors.  It rubs off quite quickly.  Also, I was very unsatisfied with the result even on the walls.  I think it would be OK if you were happy to sell the property and not care about what happens to it after you don't own it, but if you want to sell a quality product, then, in my experience, tile paint is not the way to go.

I have heard about companies that repaint tiles that may give a better and more permanent result.  I haven't used them so couldn't vouch for the result.

Cheers

K

Some friends of mine were profiled in a Reno King magazine article not so long ago.  While they made a profit doing what they did, during the editing of the article, all buying costs, holding costs and selling costs and taxes were removed from their figures so the profit shown in the article was FAR higher to the actual profit.

I recently bought a property for $250,000, subdivided a block and spent $30,000 on the house and sold the vacant land for $145,000 and the house for $310,000.  On those figures I made a profit of $175,000 over a 6 month period.  However, after all costs, my profit is around the $90,000 mark, which is still very decent, but nowhere near the figures that are often quoted in these magazines. 

I think that there is still money to be made but it is certainly not as easy in this market as it was a few years ago.  Bank lending has tightened up and unless you buy a property undervalued it is very difficult to add more in value than the actual cost of the reno.  The property above was at least $30,000 undervalued because the REA didn't realise that the block could be subdivided.  Also, it is an entry level house where the market hasn't really been affected and is in a reasonably tightly held area.  I have an excellent relationship with my bank and am able to do asset lending rather than servicability lending and I have a very decent cashflow so was able to pay all the subdivision and reno costs myself rather than having to lend this money.  Lots of reasons for still making a good profit in the current market, but all the stars really have to align for this to happen at the moment.

If I was you I would start out by buying one property that you think you has potential and one that you would be prepared to hold on to for the next few years.  Do the reno (but bear in mind when you do it that you will have to do all the maintenance on it while you own it, so make sure the reno is a decent one.  Some of the Reno Kings' practices look really nice but don't last long (eg, painting grout on floor grouting) so they are only really of any use if you are going to sell the property and don't care what happens after you have sold it.).   Then approach the bank and see whether you can access more equity.  If you can, then you can repeat the process.  If you can't then you have at least gotten yourself a decent property with hopefully a neutralish cash flow and will be well positioned for the next boom.

Cheers

K

You can get private finance, but you will pay through the nose.  I know of a woman who is lending from people who have spare case at the rate of 50% pa.

Those sorts of deals are done through a solicitor.

Cheers

K

Don't do it.  The only reason I can think for requiring this sort of statement is so the pest inspector can say "subject to the truth of the vendor's disclaimer that there has not been any pest activity, this property does not have any pest issues".  What will then happen is that if there is a problem down the track, the pest inspector can say "Well, my report was dependent on the truth of the owner's statement".  The pest inspector avoids any claim against him/her and throws it back to the owner.

This is just the pest inspector limiting his/her own liability.

If you really want the sale and there has been no timber pest activity while you have been there, just write a letter saying "to the best of my knowledge there has been no timber pest activity at my property."  Make sure that is true though.  Definitely don't get into the "other problems with the property" or "other works to the property" questions.  They are too far reaching and none of the pest inspector's business.  The pest inspector probably won't even read your letter and will be satisfied with you commenting on pest activity while you have been there.

I sometimes get strange requests from purchasers.  Recently I sold a brand new house and the purchaser wanted engineering plans, evidence that council had certified the works etc.  I simply gave them the development and building approvals from Council.  This was not what they asked for but I wasn't obliged to provide them with what they asked for.  Rather than get them offside by telling them that, I gave them a bunch of documents that had council and engineering information on it and never heard back from them.

Cheers

K

Cheers

K

I don't think that you have any legal obligation to allow the tenant to break the lease without penalty.  However, I expect that the tenant will be able to take you to the Residential Tenancies Tribunal and be allowed to break the lease on "financial hardship" grounds.

Is the rental market tight in your area?  Would it be easy to secure another tenant?

I have trouble with Gibbo's comment about upping the rent on lease breaks.  To the best of my knowledge, if a tenant breaks their lease and is liable to continue paying rent until a new tenant is found, the landlord cannot up the rent until the original lease would have expired.  If a landlord wants to up the rent then the lease must be terminated by agreement, which means that the tenant's financial obligations come to an end.  They don't have to pay rent, advertising etc to find a new tenant.  

Gibbo's friends may have terminated the leases by agreement and upped the rent.  This would be a good thing to do if your property is currently rented under market value.  You can then up the rent.

As a moral aside, I would do something about the heater.  I think a $3000 electricity bill is unreasonable.  All it will do is put tenants offside.  I am a bit believer in keeping tenants happy.  I once had a property where the hot water service was not able to be put on a cheaper tariff, so the power bill was astronomical.  Rather than upset the tenants, I put a timer on the service.  I also notified all tenants of the need to utilise the timer to avoid high bills.  If I was in your shoes, at a very minimum I would tell tenants that the heater is expensive to run.  I would probably even put it in the rental agreement.  Otherwise you run the risk of further tenants taking you to the Residential Tenancies Tribunal, which is very pro-tenant.

Just my two cents' worth.

Cheers

K

Clause 2.1.6 defines the default rate as being 5 percentage points above the current RBA cash rate.  I think that the current cash rate is 3%, which makes the default rate 8%.

Cheers

K

Well done.  Sounds like the best case scenario.

I assume the purchaser was having money problems and hoping you would just let it slide, but on communication with your conveyancer, realised that this was not going to happen.  I think he/she realised that it was far cheaper to pay the penalties than to have you terminate the contract and be up for all your lost profits.

Cheers

K