FAQs
What does a Settlement Agent do?
Settlement Agents (or Conveyancers) take much of the work and worry of buying or selling real estate off your shoulders. Apart from handling the complex and often lengthy of transferring ownership, they also ensure that the interests of all concerned are fully protected, and they will advise you of your responsibilities and rights and deal with any legal issues that may arise from the transaction.
What is the process for settlements?
Why is there a difference between the settlement agent prices for buyers and sellers?
There are more complex and comprehensive searches performed when you are purchasing a property, hence the fees are higher.
What if there are issues with the building inspection?
Speak to the real estate agent about your concerns. Be aware that the wording of the building inspection report condition in the contract is crucial in deciding whether the Seller is liable to rectify any of your concerns. The most commonly used conditions only state that the Seller is liable to rectify “structural defects” only.
What Do I Do About the Rates?
If you receive an account during the pre-settlement period, be sure to call your settlement agent before paying it. Otherwise you do not need to do anything as all rates will be adjusted at settlement.
Why are you holding monies for water/council rates? I have paid every account I received on time.
A reading of your water meter is arranged for settlement date. Once the account is received, the amount due is calculated and paid, and the balance refunded to you.
Rate notices are not received at time of initial settlement statements so monies are held in reserve if any rate payments are due. If you have fully paid your rates for the financial year you will receive a refund.
Why is my bank taking so long to be ready to settle?
Most common hold ups are due to lack of suitable Certificate of Currency for your Insurance Policy. This needs to be arranged and paid as soon as you receive your mortgage.
Another common problem is missing signatures, or signatures not properly witnessed.
Why don’t you know the full amount for payment of settlement?
The finance approval letter from your bank shows the total value of your loan, however, all bank charges are deducted from the total loan amount before any money is released for actual settlement. Many banks will not disclose the “funds available for settlement” until the actual settlement booking is made.
Why do I need to show you my identification?
Verification of Identity (VOI) is required whenever property is being sold or transferred in Western Australia in order to protect against land title fraud. Since the introduction of electronic conveyancing, both sellers and buyers are required to verify their identity before residential settlements or other conveyancing transactions can be completed.
A conveyancer is required to successfully identify any person for whom they are preparing Landgate documents for that will affect the land title. This is in order to ensure that it is a genuine person who is buying or selling property, and to reduce the possibility of identity theft, land title fraud or other improper transactions.
The documents that are required for the VOI process to be completed are set out in the Land Title Verification of Identity Form, available on the Landgate Website.
There are three VOI options that we offer:
1.IN PERSON, AT OUR OFFICE
If you undertake VOI in person at Bunbury Settlement Services office, we will take a photograph of your original documents, which we then upload to our secure database. In the interests of security, we do not retain hard or paper copies of any of your documentation.
2.VIRTUAL VOI VIA AN SMS LINK
If you opt for our Virtual VOI Service (which is powered by ID Secure/GlobalX), you will be sent a SMS link from your conveyancer that is valid for 7 days. You will then be prompted to upload copies of your ID documents and to take a photo of yourself.
Document Verification Services (DVS) and optical character recognition (OCR) technology are then used to verify that the documents are authentic, and the person in the photo is the same as in the uploaded documents.
This VOI report will then instantly be sent to our ID Portal, where it will be stored securely for 9 years.
3.IN PERSON AT AN AUSTRALIA POST OFFICE
It is possible for an individual to have their identity independently verified in accordance with Landgate’s VOI requirements through a participating Australia Post office.
We would always recommend, wherever possible, options 1 or 2, as these are the most efficient ways of getting the job done with the least inconvenience. It is important to know that we cannot proceed to settlement until the identity of all clients in a transaction have been verified.
BEFORE YOU BEGIN YOUR VOI PROCESS
In order to complete the steps required for verification of identity, original ID documents need to be provided. These are divided into five categories, ranked 1 to 5 in value order; most people will generally fall into the first three categories:
CATEGORY 1
- Australian Passport or foreign passport
- plus Australian drivers licence with photo or Photo Card
- plus change of name or marriage certificate if necessary
CATEGORY 2
- Australian Passport or foreign passport
- plus full birth certificate or citizenship certificate or descent certificate
- plus Medicare or Centrelink or Department of Veterans’ Affairs card
- plus change of name or marriage certificate if necessary
CATEGORY 3
- Australian drivers licence with photo or Photo Card
- plus full birth certificate or citizenship certificate or descent certificate
- plus Medicare or Centrelink or Department of Veterans’ Affairs card
- plus change of name or marriage certificate if necessary