Will I be charged late settlement fees??

[Elfi]

Hello everyone!!

Sorry to bore everyone!

Heres the story... I purchased my first property 2 months ago. Settlement day was meant to be on Monday the 13th. I spoke to conveyancer and broker last Saturday to see if it was still going ahead.

Apparently something was filled out incorrectly for the FHOG and they had to resend the paperwork. Ive just also found out (through a friend of mine) that my broker has been in the Gold Coast on holidays for the past 2 weeks! Ive rang and texted him numerous times and it keeps getting pushed back!
At this stage he has said to me that he is pushing for next tuesday (over text message).
My question is will i get charged for this? When i asked him this question the reply i got was "maybe, usually if the owner demands it"!!!!!!!
What the h*ll!!
What will happen??

Regards, Elfi

 

[chran]

What does your contract say?

My understanding is "normally" the buyer must pay interest for every day settlement got delayed. It's worth asking the solicitor to negotiate - you might be able to get away without paying/ paying less.

 

[Kooz]

Depends on the mood of the Vendor

I'm sure this situation has occurred many time over - even with the best of planning (but Kudos to anyone who has adverted a delay).

In my situation when buying an IP, the bank was dragging their heels. The vendor was approached to extend settlement by 1 week and Hey Presto - No Worries - they said. It was an IP for them as well, so an additional week of rent was a bonus to them (they must have forgotten about the extra week of bank loan interest ).

Karen

 

[HappyCamper]

Depends how hard ball the vendor wants to play it. Your conveyancer/solicitor will be able to advise you of your obligations, and if the contract obliges you to pay late settlement interest (and I haven't come across one that hasn't), then the vendor has every right to charge you that amount.

 

[Perp]

Firstly, your broker is perfectly entitled to go on holidays. If they let a pending settlement stop them, they'd never have a holiday. And it sounds as though he's kept his remote office working anyway, so there's no need for the broker to be physically present.

Now, with regard to the delay... delays are so common as to be the rule rather than the exception. If it was important for you not to have any delays, then you should have been chasing it up much sooner than two days before settlement.

Anyway, if it's any consolation, the penalty is unlikely to be much more than the negative cashflow that you'd have had to incur if settlement had happened on time, so don't sweat it too much.

 

[mary&mat]

Agree with Kooz.

We had similar experience with bank delaying us by almost a week & a half. Spoke to vendors through REA & they were fine to wait. They were very reasonable about it & I believe just keeping them in the loop really helped.

Sometimes in this life, you will come across really nice people