Friday, September 14, 2012 2:56 PM

The last few K talk articles have focused on preparing your house for sale in the near future and how to add value to your home. The last, and probably the most important of all subjects to cover is your home’s paperwork.  Often when I am about to take a property to the market to be sold I find a problem, which at best can delay the sale process by a few weeks or at worst can postpone the sale process by months.

The two main items of paperwork where I find issues are the certificates of title, especially cross lease titles and land information memorandums (LIMs).

In the case of cross lease titles, over the years additions have been done to a property, often with all the consents in place but the owners have forgotten or failed to realise that these additions, if altering the foot print of the property must be shown on the flats plan. Sometimes these defective titles have remained like that through several owners, with many not realising that there is a problem. It is only when they are selling their home and the issue is raised by a prospective purchaser, salesperson or lawyer that they are made aware. Rectifying the title can take time and issues can arise, so my advice to any home owner looking to sell their property is get a new copy of your title and consult your legal advisors to make sure there is nothing that is going to impede the sale process.

It is standard practice now for purchasers and their advisors to interrogate a LIM for the property that they are considering purchasing. I often find that homeowners have never seen a copy of the LIM for their property before the sale process begins. Many believe that the alterations they did several years ago were “all signed off” but on obtaining the LIM realise that final Code Compliance Certificates are outstanding. This can create a number of problems for owners and certainly delays in the sale process while CCC’s or a Certificate of Acceptance are sought.

So check all your paperwork, and seek legal advice if you find there are some issues, well before the sale process begins.