Blow me down with a feather

[Qinau]

FWIW Dazz your story just gave me one of those sinking feelings, so in order to get to sleep tonight I jumped on and purchased a copy of the title for my IP. Thankfully it's in my name, although I had to Google why some company called Estate fee simple was also listed there

If these things can happen to a seasoned professional then what hope is there for us little folk?

Hope it all works out for you.

Cheers

 

[lizzie]

but putting people down is another thing.

strange as this is exactly what you are doing.

i strongly suggest you pull your head in and listen - dazz is a font of fantastic information, and more than willing to share the ups and downs, so i suggest you take your personal issues aside (that are your issues) and stop your personal attacks.

he could very easily take his very large bat and ball home and not share - but he choses to do so, and i, for one, is very grateful.

i too, like perp, had a run in with dazz when i first started at the forum - but now consider him one of the best resources, and top bloke, i have ever (and i mean ever) come across.

fwiw - scenarios like this happen, not because of arrogance but because of many many other factors. i have bought and sold dozens of properties and never once has i checked the title deeds down the track.

i also had a situation where i missed paying insurance on one property and was really peeved when the neighbour caused damange to the side of the house when driving down the shared driveway - and i realised i wasn't insured. it wasn't smugness or arrogance or holier than thou, it just "was". i ended up very grateful to the neighbour as i insured the property quick smart and then 2 months later we had massive floods thru and i was covered. easy to say i was lazy to not notice the insurance hadn't been paid - but laziness had nothing to do with it!

do you check every title deed for every property you deal with? have you never had an oversight?

for a newie to the forum your attitude is rather aggressive.

 

[Bill.L]

Hi all,

Dazz, indeed a mess, yet there is probably not a lot to worry about.

If the papers are lodged next week, I presume that is when the ATO will deem settlement to occur ??

The contract date is what the ATO go by, according to our accountant and the ATO......

Your client will be taken to have acquired or disposed of their property for CGT purposes when they enter into a contract to purchase or sell it. In some States this is the time when contracts are exchanged, in others it is the time when both parties sign the contract.

If your client is selling a property this means that they should include their capital gain or loss in their income tax return for the income year in which they enter into the contract – not the income year in which the settlement takes place

from here.....

http://www.ato.gov.au/businesses/content.asp?doc=/content/54986.htm

Also, if the original owners tried to sell the property to someone else, after they had settled with you, then they would be committing fraud in the eyes of the law and chargeable. They would have to be pretty unscrupulous and foolish to try it.

bye

 

[Piston Broke]

As I said, I hope he gets his property back as no one deserves that but I think a little worry over the weekend might be a good wake up call!

There is nothing to "get back", he owns it.
Maybe you should learn to sukitup instead of crying, and be thankful that he's got the balls to do it first and to post about it second.
What you (and many others) dont understand is that just because they dont agree with you doesn't mean they wish your house got eaten by termites which is how you seem to think.

As for some others here, your like hysterical mother in laws.
All these documents are not done all at the same time instantly.
There is a sale process, but the sale has been done.
It's a contract boys & girls.

 

[geoffw]

You should have done your research and obviously you have a lousy solicitor. But worst of all you have being lazy, not checking your sale documents etc.


As I wrote here you sort of got what you deserve Dazz



tough but I find it hard to feel sorry for you

House sale

That is a spiteful and demeaning post.

Normally a post like that would be removed- but the responses to your post have been valuable, so it may be left to stay.

Dazz and I have had our run ins. I'm not a fan of the way he sometimes posts.

But I don't believe your response is at all appropriate.

 

[vbplease]

I agree with the others, there should be no worries... ok, the name "Dazz" isn't on the title, but the contract was signed and money paid in good faith, so the vendor should not be legally allowed to sell again while keeping your money.. wouldn't this be some kind of fraud?

The only thing I'd add to that is, every settlement seems to throw up a totally different set of problems. You square away one debacle and put the lessons learnt into the ol' memory bank, and on the next go around, something completely different becomes a hurdle.

I've thought a few times, it would be great to have a comprehensive checklist, maybe as a sticky thread in the "buying/selling process" section... but it would be pretty exhausting.. considering a lot of it includes chasing up to see if others do their jobs.

It seems everyone has a story about a settlement with hurdles.. With my first ip, I finally recieved my mortgage docs to sign on the last day of my finance clause.. but they had my name wrong, ip address wrong, and loan amount wrong

 

[JIT]

I think that there are additional pressures involved when doing interstate $5M commercial deals with big business vendors and tenants, partner level lawyers, and especially with your close immediate family members involved trusting your experience and judgement in the whole process.

If this happened to me for a 2 bed residential unit I bought for myself with the local conveyancor, I wouldn't be as stressed about it compared to one of these deals.

 

[Dazz]

That pretty much sums it up JIT. I'm embarrassed more than anything that I didn't double check what my solicitor said and wrote to me.

My underlying assumption when he wrote "congratulations, settlement has now occurred" was that our company name was now supplanted as the registered proprietor on the title deed of the property.

What he meant was - the Vendor has scarped with the cheques and the Bank took off with the title deeds still in the Vendor's name....now you can pay me my fee.

Slight difference between my assumption of what settlement meant and what he knew settlement to be.

As I wrote to him yesterday, I didn't consider his remit to "act on our behalf to acquire the property" to be complete until our company's name was the registered proprietor of the property. To me, that is the 'end of the line' for a transaction. At this stage, he doesn't agree. We shall have words tomorrow.

I've subsequently spoken to both my mortgage broker and my accountant.

The MB reckons this is quite common, and has pretty much the same opinion as Kristine above. Obviously those guys see hundreds, if not thousands of transactions, and have probably seen the lot. I don't take any comfort from that at all at this stage. I'm only interested in my title deeds getting squared away, and don't care if Harry Humpy had a similar problem back in '96.

My accountant reckons this is an unmitigated **** up, but reckons from an accountanting / tax / depreciation viewpoint, everything is dictated by the dates on the Contract of Sale, and therefore everything will be fine in the long run.

My family members have taken it reasonably well as far as I can tell. I'll just keep studiously working through the new issues that have arisen until we break through the other side, and get everything squared away. Who knows, we had a big celebration dinner when we "thought" we first owned it.....might be time for another big dinner party when we actually do.

Both the Vendor and Tenant know nothing about this, and don't need to know, and it's best if they don't. Hopefully this time next week all will be resolved.

The Bank has been completely silent other than that one phone call on late Friday arvo. Still don't know if they located the paperwork or not. Obviously, they haven't written to me.

 

[Piston Broke]

And now I give you the actual Welcome to Sydney, the land of silks & money and where being a cynical **** like me is often required.

 

[redwing]

(Note : In the back of my mind, felt it slightly strange that we haven't had a bill for anything since we settled in February....it's only been 8 months....maybe they all just forgot.....).

You gotta listen to those subconscious thoughts

"They" (as a collective group) never seem to forget

Kudo's to you for posting on the issue, warts and all; lessons therein for us all.

Hopefully the rest of the family aren't stressing too much over the weekend.

Ref: House Sale's posts

A number of occasional posts by Dazz I have thought to be harsh at first, then upon later reflection found them to have a lot of merit and insight. Bit like my old man trying to tell me something for the umpteenth time

 

[Risky Business]

As I wrote to him yesterday, I didn't consider his remit to "act on our behalf to acquire the property" to be complete until our company's name was the registered properitor of the property. To me, that is the 'end of the line' for a transaction. At this stage, he doesn't agree. We shall have words tomorrow.

Hey Dazz, I'm with you mate. I expect this base level of service. I wish you the best. Thanks for sharing mate.

"House Sale." It appears that you are kicking someone while they are down, and are not in a position to kick you back. I am sure you will become a valued member, but perhaps a helping hand might be better received.

 

[Dazz]

As expected, having a busy morning trying to co-ordinate both Bankers and solicitors in Sydney.


Banker informs me that he has the entire settlement dept looking for the paperwork, but so far they have come up empty handed....not what I wanted to hear. He did say that naturally there have been many many transactions wash thru since February, so it may take some time to locate.


If the paperwork cannot be found, that sends the situation into a much uglier regime than it already is. I want to avoid that path if at all possible. If they do find it, it's straight down to titles office.


He's bitten the bullet and informed his superiors of the fact they've given over 5m away at settlement and don't have jack squat to secure it. Hopefully we get our funds for our next venture before they decide to sack him.


Not surprisingly, my solicitor has suddenly grown Teflon shoulders and has disclaimed any and all responsibility. Helpful. Why am I not surprised ?? He reckons it is not normal practice to check the title after settlement. I suggested his normal practice sucks big Chocky Rocks. He reckons the job is finished. We are arguing over the definition of what the "job" is, but because it wasn't clearly defined in the scope of work, it is a hopeless cause.


I'll know for future to ensure to state in writing, that as the client I won't consider the job to be complete until the Purchaser's name is officially listed as the registered proprietor on the title deed.....and for them to send it on thru so I can read it for myself. This Mickey Mouse letter they pump out with "congratulations, settlement went through today" doesn't mean jack squat.


The settlement agent whom I'm dealing with for our current transaction reckons it's par for the course to check titles approx 21 days after settlement to ensure the job is complete. Apparently not for my Sydney big city solicitor....

 

[Ausprop]

The settlement agent whom I'm dealing with for our current transaction reckons it's par for the course to check titles approx 21 days after settlement to ensure the job is complete.

. correct

 

[JamesGG]

Pay me a coupla K if ya wanna know what a competent solicitor is.

Thankyou for sharing this story, Dazz.

I think that there is a good lesson in this for all of us; cheers.

 

[Dazz]

.....yes well JGG, you've obviously picked up, along with a few others, that after all my years dealing with solicitors, I am still unable to discern and discriminate between what a "good" solicitor is and what a "not-so-good" solicitor is.

Heaven help someone selecting a solicitor on their first or second merry-go-round. As always, degrees and certificates on walls don't mean anything. The saying "you pay for what you get" doesn't cut the mustard either. You only find out the true mettle of someone at the back end of the service when the nut cutting starts, not the fluffy front end.

As for Bankers, well, I'm not much chop at selecting them either.

 

[Simon]

I suspect that like most self employed professionals like Solicitors, Doctors, Dentists etc there is no one keeping statistics on their performance.

The professional bodies are more about protecting their members than regulating them.

Nothing ever seems to get done until things go really wrong and we read about something dreadful in the paper.

So Dazz, are you going to try and make a complaint about the people who let you down here?

If you do then I suspect you will get a letter in reply and very little else.

Perhaps the best thing from your lender will be a higher level of service in the future.

I am sure that this will all work out OK and I hope they sort it by COB today for you.

Cheers,

 

[Dazz]

No Simon, I'm not after recriminations or apology letters or any of that gumpf.


I just want people who are being paid to be and supposed to be acting for my best interests to actually put my interests in front of their own.


I'm not interested in bettering their industry, I'm not after anything over and above what they have promised to deliver.


You've gotta admit, if I had a conversation at the start during engagement of the solicitor that went along the lines of I would be over the moon and happy and the end of the transaction to be standing there with no title deed in my name and the solicitor saying, yep, that'd be a job well done it would be slightly strange.


As I said before, the Banker plonker who dropped the ball on the paperwork probably didn't even see it go thru the office. It would of been handed thru to some disinterested little 23 yo wet behind the ears bloke who couldn't get into Uni cranking thru the files with an ipod clung to his head, a basketball hoop on the side of his desk and picture of Samantha Fox half hidden on his little 9 sqm cubicle wall. No wurries chief, I'll get 'er dun.


How do you hold people like that accountable ??


As I said before, this head Banker has approved the loan on our next acquisition and we are getting to the critical stage of that one, so the last thing I need is to have to stop concentrating on that, and start fighting a rearguard action to put to bed something that I was assured by my solicitor had been put to bed 8 months ago. When you put something to bed, you don't expect to find it much later on wandering around unprotected in the middle of the street.


Higher level of service next time from the Lender....nope, next time is already here and it's pretty woeful. I reckon the guy won't be around too much longer, and in about 3 days everyone in the Bank and others except me will have forgotten that this even happened.


Such is life....everyone is non-plussed nowadays. It's apparently cool to be unphased.

 

[Perp]

It would of been handed thru to some disinterested little 23 yo wet behind the ears bloke who couldn't get into Uni cranking thru the files with an ipod clung to his head, a basketball hoop on the side of his desk and picture of Samantha Fox half hidden on his little 9 sqm cubicle wall.

Samantha Fox? You're showing our age!

 

[Player]

Hang in there Mr. D.

Systems failings and ineptness seem rife these days. This is someone (probably in their 20's as you've mentioned and likely bored) who has not satisfied the paper trail. We all deal with organisations well branded like law firms, banks, and so forth and we see a veneer of smoke and mirros with very little substance.

Who knows where that title is? It may even be in Bangalore or still in transit........and no one followed up.

Appreciate your candid sharing of this thorn in your side and the lessons here for everyone, least of all yourself. Goes to show that no matter how meticulous one is in their due diligence, reasearch, negotiations and prior history of engaging top-notch commercial legal services, oversights can happen.

Reconcile everything folks. EVERYTHING. Whilst small bikkies in the scheme of Dazz's situation here, I had a Sydney solicitor cost me about eight grand in inappropriate land tax at settlement, that eventually they reimbursed me after some harsh words from my Melbourne solicitor who also recommendeed these clowns.

Read and double check everything through all stages of the transaction and reconcile all numbers. How many people just file away the statment of adjustments and disbursements because they've bought a simple resi deal. Not me on that occasion. It's all gotta stack up. Validate eveything.

Dazz, again thanks for sharing this eye opening situation and the legal and taxation ramifications that may have unfolded due to failure to complete.

Good luck with the correction of the error in your provider's ways.

Wonder if they are audtied? Now there's another paper trail of smoke and mirrors.......

 

[dan c]

Samantha Fox? You're showing our age!

Ha ha. You beat me to it!