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‘Too difficult’: $145k loss sparks stern contract reminder
Vendors and buyers have been given a stern reminder about the dangers of not reading over their property contracts, after a couple lost $145,000 on their sale.
Last year, Nadine and Michael Kucks intended to sell their Hodgson Vale property for $1.35m million, but signed a contract for $1.21m instead, with their conveyancing solicitor only realising a month later.
The mishap followed an apparent miscommunication between the buyers, Jessica and Kristian Beck, and McGrath Toowoomba Director Heston Marino regarding two separate price offers.
The matter was taken to Queensland’s Supreme Court, where the Judge found that the Becks had properly executed the contract and ordered the Kucks to complete the sale at the lower price.
According to Conveyancing Services Queensland's conveyancing manager, Darren Morris, mistakes in property contracts were common, but the case was unique because of the large figure involved and the fact that it wasn’t entirely resolved.
“Unfortunately, there's no one person to blame. You can't blame the agents, you can't blame the conveyancers, and we don't want to blame the clients, but everyone has a role to play,” he told SPI.
Morris said that while the matter may have come down to a lack of communication between the agent and vendor, he added that all too often buyers and sellers neglected to check their contracts thoroughly.
In particular, he said people in Queensland often treated contracts like an inconvenience, neglecting to read them properly.
“The purchasing and selling of real estate of million dollar plus properties seems to be taken lighter than when people go and buy a secondhand car,” he said.
Morris said in Queensland, it was even more important for buyers and sellers to take the initiative, as conveyancers in the state were often not involved in price negotiations or discussions.
He said it was the conveyancer’s role to review the full contract, ensuring it made legal sense, before sending an initial letter to their clients.
“At the top of the first page, we list the facts of, you've sold your property for this amount of money, or purchased, these are the conditions you've put in your contract,” he said.
He said that despite making the key details clear on the first page, he believed a majority of clients didn’t even take the effort to read the two-page letters.
“We’re talking about million-dollar-plus properties, and if it's not on one of those platforms where you can just click a button to sign, then it's all too difficult and too hard,” he said.
According to Morris, while many conveyancers offered free-of-charge contract review services, buyers were often in a rush to secure a property due to time pressures.
“When you have offers going in the middle of the night or over the weekends, sometimes we're not always available to check it … buyers don't want to miss out on a property over the weekend,” he said.
However, he said sellers often had more flexibility to wait and that it was worth waiting until the following Monday to have the document checked.
“If they indicate to the buyer that they are going to accept it ,,,I don't think the buyer's going to walk away. In most cases, the buyer will quite happily sit there until Monday morning.
“The sellers should be protecting themselves by getting the documents checked Monday morning instead of signing on a weekend,” Morris concluded.