Buying a house in Tasmania
Navigating a Tasmanian real estate contract
- Get a good lawyer or conveyancer, if you do it yourself and make a mistake, you could suffer a loss as a result and will be unable to get financial compensation.
- Get insurance, the buyer becomes liable for damages to the property once contracts are exchanged. I’ve seen a house that was unoccupied and someone broke in and lit a fire on the timber floor after the contract was signed.
- Make sure you have the building inspection clause and the 3-day cooling-off period, In the contract. plus a minimum of 7-10 days period to get the building inspection done..
- Don’t use a real estate recommended Building inspector. Would you buy a car from a used car salesman and get it checkout by his mechanic or your own! Get a fully licensed and insured local building inspector and research him, you’re about to spend your life savings.
- Check to see if he is a licensed builder with the Department of Justice Tasmania and ask to see a copy of his PI insurance because without that he can’t certify the defects if there is a problem.
- Check Google reviews.
- Keep the defect limit on the contract to a minimum around 1% or no greater than $10,000 (It was 1% on every contract prior to May 2017 and still can be a percentage or a figure)
- Try to line up the building inspector early to take advantage of the 3-day cooling-off period.