Can anyone please provide me with details regarding the legalities of accessing a property during the settlement period for renovation. Is it possible for you to get caught out, legally or by the vendor?
You’ll need to get permission from the vendor
to access the property before settlement, it’s
not a given that they’ll grant this, personally
I wouldn’t let the purchaser onto the property
unsupervised before settlement.andy
Be aware that if for some reason the settlement doesn’t proceed then the vendor may benefit from your reno or may be not if you aren’t very good at it [
]I think he needs to grant you a license to access the property during that period – at least thats the case in NSW.
Cheers
Simon Macks
Mortgage Hunter
[email protected]
0425 228 985Comments may not be relevant to individual circumstances. If you intend making any investment, financial or taxation decision you should consult a professional adviser.
I’m not sure of the legality in Qld, but we were able to access a property prior to settlement. We had it repainted internally and some other minor works done. This meant we were able to get a tenant in very soon after settlement. If you’re sure of your finance and that the settlement will go ahead, ask the agent to seek permission from the vendor.
We are also in Qld and specified it in our 60 day settlement contract that after finances went unconditional we had access to the property to do ‘minor repairs and improvements’ – the vendor agreed as the place had been empty for over a month and yet the real estate agent still went a bit nutty every time we tried to do something – sometimes it’s the ‘middle people’ who are the problem!!
Note we knew that if we didn’t settle we would have done our dough, but it was fairly minor (safety switches, few wall repairs and paint) so not a big concern, and saved us over two weeks of hassles trying to work around furniture after moving in.
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Mel
[email protected]For all of our 3 properties we have added a clause to the contract to get access to the property once the contract went unconditional – meaning that it had to proceed and we had to buy the property. Getting access before the contract is unconditional is risky, because if you do work on the property and the contract falls over, then you have to bring the property back to what it was before you started, which could be difficult or costly.
Of our 3 houses, we have only had one where the current owners agreed to this (cest la vie), and they were very good about it and even helped us with some of the work that was being done – very, very nice people. We reciprocated, as he was a lawn mower man, we now use his services to mow the lawns at the rental property which used to be his house.
It meant that we were able to tenant the property the day after settlement, which we did manage to do.
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