The new SCSI guide “Speed Up Your Property Sale – A Guide To Avoiding The Most Common Delays“, is designed to help purchasers identify, and hopefully avoid, potential delays in selling their property.
For most residential property sales, it is estimated that the average timeframe is about four to five months. However, for some property sales there can be delays and for a few, those delays can be significant.
Selling or buying a property is not always straightforward or quick. For most people it is the biggest purchase they will ever make, and the process is designed to protect them and their money. Over the years, other protections have been built into the process for selling property including measures to prevent money laundering and a requirement to collect outstanding taxes on behalf of the Revenue Commissioners.
All of this has made the process more complicated and, in some cases, there may be as many as 15 parties involved in the transaction. Those involved range from the seller and the buyer to multiple financial institutions, government agencies such as local authorities, the Revenue Commissioners and the Probate Office (see page 6 of the guide for the full list).
Some of the process has become digitised but, unfortunately, much of it remains paper based. While there are already projects in place to develop e-Conveyancing and e-Probate, these will take time.
As things stand, there are several common delays in selling your property. If you are aware of them, you can plan ahead and try and avoid them wherever possible.
Download GuideSource: Society of Chartered Surveyors Ireland