There is probably no more long-awaited and joyful event than buying your own home. But, unfortunately, this transaction does not always go smoothly. So that your housewarming party is not overshadowed by problems with incorrect paperwork or claims from out of nowhere applicants for square meters who have come from nowhere, you need to carefully prepare for the procedure and delve into all the legislative subtleties regarding housing purchase and sale transactions. So how not to stay on the street by buying an apartment?
Personally or with an intermediary?
The first question that comes before you can confuse you: who, in fact, will be looking for a suitable apartment and collecting the necessary documents? Three options:
1. Do it yourself.
2. Get a realtor.
3. Contact an intermediary.
Think about all the ways. Professional help in this matter will be fully justified. Realtors have the appropriate education and extensive experience in conducting transactions of this level, however, for their work they ask for a solid payment, the amount of which can reach 6% of the cost of housing.
Realtors will provide professional assistance when buying an apartment
In this regard, it is more pleasant to deal with intermediaries. For the selection of an option and assistance in purchasing, they ask for no more than 3%.
After assessing how much you will gain by looking for suitable housing options on your own, do not forget to analyze whether they are realistically able to take into account all possible developments of the situation and avoid serious risks during the acquisition of property. Having dived into the stream of legal subtleties on your own, you may not notice underwater reefs, having flown into which, you will lose much more than you saved on a competent assistant. But if you have enough knowledge, enthusiasm, time resources and just moral strength - then go ahead!
back to index ↑Where to stop?
The housing market has its own division, so before you start looking for an apartment, think about what category you would like to see it in: primary or secondary?
New buildings are classified as primary housing, for square meters in which the right of ownership of an individual has never yet been formalized. In fact, primary housing is not just a house, but real estate, the ownership of which is wholly owned by the developer.
New buildings - primary housing
Secondary housing is any property that has already been owned by an individual at least once. This means that an apartment in a new, newly built building is not always a primary residence. To look for the “primary” in a house built a hundred years ago is generally nonsense. There, apartments, at times, have entire lists of owners.
Secondary housing - an apartment that already had an owner
It is difficult to say which option is better. Both have a lot of pros and a lot of cons.
primary housing
Advantages:
1. Legal purity. Such housing a priori does not have a prehistory, since there were no owners.Accordingly, you can not worry that someone is registered in the apartment and forget about problems with the ex-owners.
2. The novelty of housing. In a newly built house, you will not have to make major repairs, modernize communications, etc.
3. Reasonable price. This applies to the purchase of an apartment in a house that is still under construction. The fact of capital investment is fixed by drawing up an equity participation agreement.
The apartment in the primary housing is legally clean
Flaws:
1. The protracted process of obtaining housing in personal ownership. An official document on the ownership of this property can be obtained no earlier than in a few months, or even years, which makes it impossible to have a legal residence permit for this period.
2. Location. New buildings are mainly built on the outskirts of the city, which entails a number of problems of the social order.
3. Lack of finishing. Having bought an apartment “from scratch”, you will have to completely finish it, and you will begin the process with the construction of interior walls and partitions.
4. The risk of losing the invested money. Construction sites are often frozen, developer companies declare themselves bankrupt or worse, they are initially scammers.
Resellers
Advantages:
1. Fast execution of the transaction.
2. Possibility to choose a region.
3. You can immediately move in and live.
The apartment in the secondary housing is already ready for occupancy
Flaws:
Legal risks that are incredibly high in relation to such real estate. Here you will need to find out a lot of nuances. Make sure that absolutely all tenants have been discharged from the living space and that there are no persons who have retained the right to a part of, now yours, property.
When buying an apartment, make sure that all tenants are discharged
Another scourge is debts on utility bills. If there were any, then you will have to extinguish them. There may be other situations about which no one will voluntarily inform you. For example, housing may be seized or pledged. Especially you need to be on the lookout if the object is sold at too low a price.
back to index ↑Where to look for options?
It is best to start your search with newspaper ads. To this day, many people use this old way of selling housing. You can scroll through multiple sites where such information is posted on bulletin boards. By the way, such resources are more likely to get in touch with the direct seller of the apartment, rather than negotiate with a series of intermediaries.
Start your search for an apartment with ads for sale
There are paid databases of real estate for sale. Use them or not - your right.
Free resources also allow you to find interesting offers, but you will have to spend a little more time on this. Sometimes you can see several ads for the sale of the same property at once. This is not a scam. Most likely, some of them were compiled by realtors, however, by calling all the numbers, you may well find the owner personally.
A popular and very effective way can be a banal posting ads in the area where you would like to buy a home. Make them in a humorous or original way so that they attract attention.
Post an owl ad on a bulletin board
It will not be superfluous to bypass the concierges at the entrances of the houses of interest. They may also have useful information for you.
Feel free to ask friends. Perhaps someone from their circle wants to sell the apartment. Strongly rely on luck in this case is not worth it, but you can try your luck.
A Few Tips
- Look for additional information about housing for sale by communicating with neighbors, concierges, employees of housing offices.
- It is necessary to be wary of urgently sold apartments. Here it is worth studying the documents very closely.
- Do not talk about the presence of a large amount on hand to buy a home.This is the easiest way to become a victim of scammers.
– Don't place high hopes on underpriced listings. Most likely, this is a marketing ploy of a realtor seeking to attract attention to real estate. In reality, such offers are extremely rare and if they do occur, then you will not find them on your own.
back to index ↑On the eve of the purchase
Before making the final choice and making a deal, you need to check the legal purity of the property. Traditionally, real estate agents deal with this issue. If you have taken this work upon yourself, then learn to read the submitted documents correctly so that you do not bite your elbows later. So what should you know?
What should be in the package of documents?
Having found an offer that absolutely suits you, first of all, request papers interpreting on the basis of which the property right of the selling party arose. It could be:
1. Contract of sale.
2. Gift agreement.
3. Exchange agreement.
4. Certificate of inheritance of property.
Check the availability of all documents for the apartment
It is extremely rare, but still the seller can provide a valid court decision or an annuity agreement.
Do not be too lazy to once again meet with the owners and personally view such papers. Taking them in hand, pay attention to the absence of corrections, erasures, grouts and other signs of falsification. Corrections in documents of this kind have the right to be, but each of them must be officially certified by the signatures of absolutely all the persons who signed the paper originally. If such records were made in the presence of a notary, then the document must bear his seal and personal signature.
There should be no corrections in the documents for the apartment
Be sure to check the state registration of the document. This information is issued without official requests and is available to any citizen of our country. If the contract specified certain conditions, in case of non-fulfillment of which it lost its force, it will be necessary to find out whether all the agreements were fulfilled. To make it clearer, consider the standard situation. The contract spells out the obligation of the buyer (in your case, acting as the seller) to pay the entire amount of the cost of the apartment after, say, six months from the date of purchase. If the condition has not been met, the contract is subject to termination automatically, that is, the person standing in front of you is in no way the owner of the property offered to you, and his explanation that the sale of housing is a forced step and he does it solely with the noble goal of repaying the debt, should be considered a scam.
Important! Look at the date that speaks of the entry into force of the document. You should be very wary if a very short period has passed since the moment you entered into an inheritance or donated property, especially if such a gifting gesture was made by a person who is not a relative of the seller.
How else can you check the history of the apartment?
Referring to the EGRP records. The Unified State Register reflects all information on real estate, including the history of transactions on residential properties since 1998. You have the right to ask the owner to provide you with an appropriate extract from this register, confirming that there have been no problems with housing in recent years.
Check the records of the apartment in the USRR
Attention! Think about a scam if the apartment you are offered has changed owners too often and no one has lived in it for a long time. It is possible that the matter is unclean here and they are simply trying to breed you. In any case, it would be better to refuse to buy dubious housing.
If the extract submitted by the USRR contains information about property disputes over an apartment, cases of property seizure, etc., look at the dates of the events.In this way, you can understand whether these disputes continue today or whether these problems have long sunk into oblivion. If more than three years have passed since the last showdown, the situation can be considered resolved. The real estate transaction at the moment can no longer be invalidated. If non-standard situations took place during this period, then ask the owner for court decisions on controversial issues. If they are accepted in favor of the seller, then it can be considered the legal owner. The transaction must be unambiguously refused if the courts are still in the process of considering the issue.
A residential facility may not be registered in the annals of the USRR. This is possible in relation to old apartments. This is exactly what you shouldn't be afraid of. The lack of information speaks of the absolute legal purity of the apartment, because absolutely no transactions have been conducted with it since the moment of privatization. For complete peace of mind, you can send a request about the legality of the owner's rights to the Department of Housing Policy.
If in doubt, submit a request for the legality of the owner's rights to the Department of Housing Policy
How to check the quality of an apartment?
To do this, you will need housing documents issued by the BTI. They will help you make sure that there are no illegal alterations in the house. In accordance with the law, almost all housing conversions must be coordinated with the relevant authorities. If there are no permits, all actions will be considered unauthorized.
Make sure there are no illegal redevelopments
To legitimize redevelopment self-building is an expensive and thankless task. Is it worth it to get involved - decide for yourself.
Checking the seller
Having carried away checking the apartment, do not forget to do the same with its owner. You need to start by checking the passport for authenticity. The information contained on the website of the General Directorate for Migration Issues, where the numbers of invalid documents are published, will help you with this. Official confirmation of the legitimacy of the passport can only be given to you at the local passport office.
Check the validity of the seller's passport
The situation becomes more complicated if the interests of the seller are represented by an intermediary. The latter must have a notarized power of attorney to carry out such activities. Read the document! Few prints are available. Look for information about the powers of the representative. He may not be entitled to receive money from the transaction. The field of his activity is limited only to the signing of contracts.
The intermediary must have a power of attorney for the sale of the apartment
Another point that you definitely need to be puzzled in the case of interaction with an intermediary is the seller's capacity. Neighbors can provide information about the identity of the latter. Officially, on your own, you will not receive such information.
We exclude the participation of third parties
A moment of extreme importance. Before the transaction, you must be completely convinced that no one is claiming the apartment. It is not uncommon for situations when, after a magnificent housewarming party, a relative of the seller who materialized from nowhere appears on the doorstep of the house and declares that he is registered at this address and wants to move into his room. Basically, such “relatives” are people who have been released from prison, less often - those who have been on long-term treatment, on a business trip, or expeditions.
Another risk item is minors. If, in the event of a transaction, their rights are infringed, that is, their parents will transport them to worse conditions, the guardianship authorities will intervene and you will simply be evicted, recognizing the sale and purchase as illegal.
check whether minor children are registered in the apartment
To avoid such problems, the owner must have a certificate, which will indicate all persons registered in the apartment with an explanation of whether they will retain their right to reside after the sale of housing or not.
There are a number of categories of citizens who cannot be discharged from the square under any circumstances. In particular, these are children, and even those who are under guardianship or placed at the time of the sale of housing in orphanages. It will not be possible to say goodbye to persons marked in the will of the testator as having the right to use housing. You will not evict your ex-husband/wife if they bought this apartment during their legal marriage. And this is only a part of the category of citizens of the right, whom the court will protect unconditionally.
back to index ↑Legal advice
You can minimize the risk of meeting dishonest sellers by following these rules:
1. Conduct a deal to buy a home through official real estate agencies. It is possible to purchase a legally clean living space without the participation of professionals, but it is too risky.
2. When choosing assistants, collect as much information as possible about their activities. Reviews of former clients and recommendations of acquaintances who personally collaborated with a particular office will be very helpful.
When choosing a realtor, look at the reviews
3. At the stage of concluding an agreement, pay attention to the point that determines the degree of responsibility of the realtor for poor-quality work.
4. A separate line in the case of sale and purchase are payment options for the transaction.
5. Prepayment is made exclusively against a receipt, the text of which must be drawn up by an intelligent lawyer.
When making an advance payment, take a receipt
6. Do not agree to underestimate the value of the apartment in the documents in order to win on the payment of taxes. You, as a buyer, will not benefit from this, but you may have considerable problems. If it becomes necessary to reverse the transaction, you will not receive your money back in full, since you will have nothing to prove that you have transferred much more to the seller than what is written in the receipt or indicated in another official document. By the way, this is a very popular scam.
7. Now directly about the transfer of the principal amount. The money is serious, therefore, the methods of transferring them must be reliable. It would be better to use bank instruments. Payment for purchases of this level can be made by bank transfer. The money is transferred to the seller's account, but access to it will be unlocked after the interested party presents documents confirming the completion of the transaction to the employees of the institution.
To pay for the purchase of an apartment, it is recommended to use a bank transfer
8. If the conversation is about the transfer of cash, carry out the operation through a safe deposit box. Its rent does not cost fabulous money. By default, when inserting banknotes into a cell, both sides are present. The seller will be able to open it and collect the amount due to him immediately upon completion of the transaction, as soon as he receives certified documents and can confirm the sale of the property.
9. And more. Each document included in the transaction must be photocopied. This will not only help to once again verify the legal purity of this property, but also come in handy in case of disputes or litigation.
back to index ↑Conclusion
Buying and selling an apartment is a process that does not tolerate haste. Do not be afraid to lose the option you like - be afraid to become a victim of scammers. You will still find a good apartment, but never the money that went into the pockets of swindlers.
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