If you want to avoid the hassle and cost of dealing with a real estate agent when putting your house on the market, you can consider selling it privately. However, this involves a great deal of paperwork. If you’re familiar with the details of the house-selling process in Ontario, handling your property yourself can work well in your favor.
Your paperwork should be factually correct and in perfect order at all times; otherwise, you can be subject to financial or legal repercussions that will cause more trouble than it’s worth, such as the discontinuation of your house sale. In this article, we’ll introduce some of the necessary forms you should complete if you want to close a deal without a real estate agent.
Purchase and Sale Agreement
The Agreement of Purchase and Sale form is of the utmost importance and should be on the top of your list to fill. Also known as ‘Form 100’, it’s issued by the Ontario Real Estate Association (OREA). You can find the form online.
Initially, the buyer fills out this form by consulting their lawyer or realtor. Once this is achieved, the form will make its way to you, and a purchase offer on your home is made official. A complicated document, the agreement of purchase and sale, contains a great deal of information that you should thoroughly go through, like the price offered on the house, details regarding the buyer and seller, and the terms of completion.
Following the form’s submission, you should review it with your lawyer and make whatever changes you want, if any. For example, if you want to settle on a different price, you can provide a counter-offer that your lawyer will then adjust into the document. Once you and the buyer reach an agreement in the timespan provided in the form, both parties become legally bound.
Seller Customer Service Agreement
While this is a required document only if you want your house listed on the Multiple Listing Service (MLS), it’s convenient and cheap to access and acts as a great marketing tactic for private sellers. These sellers can then come to an agreement with a brokerage or realtor, getting a ‘flat fee MLS listing.’
A flat fee listing comprises the property posted initially on the MLS along with any necessary modifications and the estate’s removal once it’s sold. Since the companies or brokers posting listings to the MLS might also provide a bunch of other services, the form is an excellent way to have these services specified and the duration for which they’re offered.
Mortgage Discharge Form
You have to discharge your mortgage if you wish to sell your house. Take note that if you possess an assumable mortgage that is being transferred to the new owner, this form doesn’t apply to you.
The Discharge of Mortgage form legally releases a loan from a part of real estate. Selling, refinancing, or buying a house requires the property’s title to be spotless, and so all previous holdings and mortgages must be disposed of.
Endnote
When it comes to privately listing your house, filling out forms is an integral part of the process that shouldn’t be neglected. As you can see, there are just a few, and even those are mostly completed by other parties. For the most part, all you need to do is review and sign these documents, which becomes easier the more you acquire information regarding them.