In Focus

Questions for a Canberra conveyancer

A Canberra conveyancer, or a solicitor doing the conveyancing, reads the contract you are too close to. They check the lease, the searches, the names, the completion mechanics and the letters that pass between firms. They do not exist to applaud a house you have already decided to love. Mei’s list is the set of questions that makes the retainer clear before you are in the last afternoon before exchange.

Zenith Lens is not a conveyancing firm. We do not quote fees, and we will not tell you that a particular practice is “the” practice for first-home buyers. Ask two firms the same questions if you want a comparison of scope. Compare the scope, not a slogan.

• Ask whether they will act for you alone, and confirm they do not act for the seller.
• Ask who the person on your file will be, and who covers leave.
• Ask them to list the documents they expect in an ACT house contract and in a unit contract.
• Ask how they report: a written note, a call, or both, and when you will receive it.
• Ask what they need from you for identity, funds and authority to exchange.
• Ask how a finance deadline in a special condition is diarised, if the contract has one.
• Ask what they do if the Lease Conveyancing Inquiry is older than they prefer.
• Ask how completion works in practice: where funds are paid, and how keys are arranged.
• Ask what they will not do: inspections, loan applications, duty concessions, insurance.
• Ask how their professional fees and search costs are described, and ask them, not this website, for the numbers.
• Ask what happens if you want to waive cooling-off. The answer should include a lawyer’s certificate, not a shrug.

What you are hiring them to read

Hand over the draft contract, your inspection notes, and the one-line summary you made of price, deposit and completion. Ask them to read the Crown lease purpose, the term, the rent clauses, the inclusions, the searches and every special condition. Ask them to tell you if a required unit document is missing, including the units plan and a unit title sale certificate dated within the period the sale rules expect. You are paying for that reading. A meeting that only repeats the agent’s summary is a meeting to question.

Ask them to explain cooling-off in the words of the current Act, applied to this contract. Is there a cooling-off period on this deal, or is it an auction, a tender, a same-day pass-in, a corporate buyer, or a waiver? If someone wants the period shortened, what certificate is required before that shortening counts? You should leave the conversation able to repeat the answer. If you cannot repeat it, you do not have it yet.

Ask what “risk” and insurance mean in this contract. Buyers often discover late that risk can pass before the day they get the keys, depending on the clause. Your conveyancer can point at the clause. An insurer, if you choose to speak to one, is who discusses a policy. We do neither of those jobs from Moore Street. We do think you should ask.

Timing, exchange, and completion

Ask what exchange means in this transaction and who is allowed to exchange. Ask whether they will exchange only on your written instruction. That sounds formal because it is. A text message you meant as a joke should not be the instruction. Agree the channel.

Ask how long they need between a finished building report and a decision. If you are ordering your own report, the report is useless if it arrives after you have already lost the right you were trying to protect. Put the report date and the contract date on the same calendar and show them both.

Completion in Canberra is a choreography of funds, titles and keys. Ask where the balance is paid, what form the lender’s funds take if a lender is involved, and what you must bring. Ask what happens if the other side is not ready. There is usually a clause about delay and about interest or notices. Ask them to show it to you before the week it might matter. The settlement-week guide on this site is a household list. Their list is the legal one. Use both, and do not let ours replace theirs.

House lease or unit plan

Tell them which one you think you are buying, then ask them to confirm from the contract. A townhouse in a new division can be a unit. A house can sit on a lease that still has a developer covenant. The questions change. For a house, you care about the single Crown lease, the building file and the yard. For a unit, you also care about common property, contributions, insurance held by the owners corporation, and whether a courtyard is on the units plan as part of the unit. Ask them which certificate they will read for those facts, and what they do if the certificate is close to the edge of its dating rule.

Ask whether they will look at owners corporation minutes if those minutes are available with the certificate, and what a special levy mentioned in the papers would mean for you. They should not invent the levy. They should show you where it is written. If nothing is written, that is also an answer, dated to those papers, not a promise that the corporation will never raise funds later.

Comparing scope without turning it into a contest

If you speak to two practices, ask both the same sheet of questions. Write the answers in their words. A lower professional fee can come with a narrower scope, or it can be the same scope. You cannot know unless you asked what is included: searches ordered, a unit certificate read, attendance at completion, a letter of advice, phone calls after exchange. This publication will not rank firms and will not publish a fee table. Fees are theirs to quote.

Ask who holds your deposit directions and who you call on the morning of completion if a figure does not match. Ask how they handle a lender’s settlement packet. If you have no lender, say so, so they do not assume a bank officer is coming. St.George and the other names in our lender-question guide are not parties to your conveyancing retainer. Your conveyancer does not become their agent because a loan might be involved, and we do not become a broker because we listed public pages.

End the first call with a recap email in your own words. If they correct it, keep the correction. That email is the scope. The house can wait an hour while you send it.

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