One of the lessons that has to be repeated over and over again at the Rawson Property Group’s training sessions, says Bill Rawson, Chairman of the group, is the simple one that agents must check up on statements from buyers detailing the sale of their existing properties.
“Sadly,” said Rawson, “intelligent people who are highly successful in other activities can be amazingly ignorant or naïve when it comes to ensuring that an agreed sale goes through. When their claim that this has happened is proven invalid, it can result in the entire purchase being unable to go ahead because they simply do not have the cash.”
“I have seen incidents where a whole chain of apparently completed sales (to make the latest deal possible) have, in fact, not taken place – or where one step has held up the whole chain.”
Rawson said that this kind of problem can cause delays of anything up to half a year, before the property comes onto the market again.
“Trusting that the potential buyer is aware of his obligations is always dangerous,” said Rawson. “In some cases the seller or the buyer will be positive about the outcome of the deal and confidently bullish. He, therefore, signs the sale agreement but does not insert a clause saying that this sale is conditional on his selling his existing property.”
“When the first sale does not take place, the seller finds that he cannot meet his obligations. This, of course, can land him in financial difficulties because sale documents are not reversible and he can be made to keep to the agreement which he has signed. Such cases may become tied up in the law courts and are always very expensive and time consuming.”
